What a difference a year makes
Recently, I was flipping through some photos, and noticed these gems from one year ago. These were taken in Aaron & Amy’s living room, back when the church was newborn and still meeting in the Grahams’ house. I don’t even remember whether we’d settled on The District Church as our name, at that point—my inclination is that we hadn’t yet. We were just a bunch of friends who felt called to plant a church in Columbia Heights, and were trying to figure out what that might look like, where and how God might be leading.
Here, in these pictures, you can see what I like to call “Post-It Sunday,” the day when we articulated the things that were necessary to church as well as the things that we could do without and still be church. These post-its eventually developed into some of our core values—including worship, community, and justice.
Twelve months later, we’re still trying to figure out what it looks like to be a church in our neighborhood; we’re still trying to be attentive to each other and to the movement of the Spirit—some things will never change. But much has changed: for the last nine months, we’ve been meeting in a school; we’ve grown more than tenfold from a dozen people to almost a hundred and fifty; we’ve gone from just one small group to five; we’ve gone from being a disparate group of people from around the Columbia Heights neighborhood toward a fuller expression of Christ’s love in our area—through ministering in local high schools, serving at neighborhood events, putting on kids’ festivals and educational movie screenings and more.
What a year it’s been. And, based on the testimony and evidence of the last year, what a year—indeed, what years!—we have to come. I’m simultaneously both completely clueless as to what God’s going to do in and with and through our church in the coming months and years … and so unbelievably excited.
When Hell Prevails
Every time a little child is unwanted, unloved, uncared for, no dream, doesn’t think it’s worth it to finish an education—hell is prevailing. That’s a lie of hell.
Every time a marriage—that began with a man and woman making a promise as they looked into each other’s eyes—ends, crashes and burns—that’s hell prevailing. That’s not the way God said it’s supposed to be.
Every time racial differences divide, make ugly, a street, a neighborhood, a city, a church, a community, and there is this distrust, suspicion, oppression—that’s hell prevailing.
Every time money gets idolized, worshiped, allowed to determine somebody’s worth, someone’s value, somebody’s security, somebody’s dream—that’s hell prevailing.
Every time a lie gets told and truth gets trampled on—that’s hell prevailing.
Every time generations of people get separated, isolated—that’s hell prevailing.
Every time a workplace becomes dehumanizing or fear-based instead of releasing the potential of the image of God in every human being—that’s hell prevailing.
When families get broken up, when virtue gets torn down, when sinful habits create a life of hidden shame or a culture of shamelessness, when faith gets undermined and lost, when hope gets trampled on, when people get trashed, hell is prevailing.
And it is not acceptable to Jesus that hell prevail; it is not okay. And our job is not to meet a budget, it’s not to run a program, it’s not to fill a building, it’s not to maintain the status quo, it’s not to keep any traditions perpetuated.
Our job is to put hell out of business.
That’s why Jesus went to the cross on Friday, that’s why he lay in the tomb on Saturday, that’s why he was raised to life on Sunday. It is why we proclaim Christ, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom so that we may present everyone mature, redeemed, complete, whole, healed, in Christ.
- John Ortberg, “One From the Heart,” Menlo Park Presbyterian Church, May 28, 2011.
Save children’s lives – why bother?
Pneumonia and diarrhea are two of the biggest killers of kids under 5 in developing countries, more than HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria COMBINED.
TDC + ONE = TWO
In case you haven’t heard via phone/email/Facebook/Twitter, I got the job at ONE! I’ve been working there for a week and a half now, and I absolutely love it. It’s a challenge—and it’s pretty exhausting, too—to work two jobs (30 hours a week at ONE and 20-25 hours at The District Church), but I love both; and am grateful for your prayers last week for the interview.
As a quick summary, the campaign that I’ve been hired for is coordinating a nationwide event on April 10, called “Lazarus Sunday” (so-called because one of the passages in the lectionary for that day is the raising of Lazarus in John 11). We want to use this occasion, in conjunction with the (RED)/HBO documentary “The Lazarus Effect”—which looks at the positive impact of anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) on people living with HIV/AIDS, and which you can watch here—to raise awareness and push for advocacy asks through churches, and thus build relationships with churches to engage in the rest of ONE’s work on fighting extreme poverty and preventable diseases.
I’m excited to be working on such a worthwhile project; I love the people I get to work with; and I’m looking forward to seeing more churches engaged in fighting HIV/AIDS. I’ll include more updates on how this goes in future emails, too.
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Getting this job definitely helps with raising support, as it’ll take me up to about $23,000 of the $30,000 that I forecasted I’d need for this year; but it means I still have a few grand of support left to raise for this year. If you know anyone you think would be interested in supporting a certain musician-activist-pastor, let me know!
Prayers please …
- For the family and friends of Lucki Pannell. She was a senior at Cardozo High School, where several from our church—including myself—volunteer with Young Life; in fact, she also attended Young Life. This past Saturday, she was killed in a shooting two streets away from where I live. Please pray also for the peace of our neighborhood and the life of our community.
- For the boys I’ve been getting to know at Young Life, whose lives are so different from mine, and yet whom I know God has called me to invest in.
- For The District Church, as we continue to grow, build relationships within the church and in our neighborhood, seek opportunities to serve and love the people around us, and seek the transformation of our city.
- For myself, as I try to be disciplined with my time, balancing a couple of jobs, trying to give my best to both, and also to take some rest and not burn out! Prayers for the success of the ONE campaign I’m working on would also be appreciated!
Grace and peace to you and your loved ones,
Jus.
Previously on “Justin @The District Church”
- Washington, DC: Chapter 2(October 11, 2010)
- Beginning November (and the Leadership Residency)(November 1, 2010)
- Why The District Church?(November 18, 2010)
- My First Sermon(December 15, 2010)
- What a difference a year makes(December 29, 2010)
- If I Keep Going At This Rate(January 18, 2011)
- A Message and a Job Interview (January 31, 2011)
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MLK
From his "Drum Major Instinct" sermon, delivered February 4, 1968, only a few months before his assassination, words to keep me humble and grounded and ever thankful that God invites us to play a part in his story:
Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don't have to know Einstein's theory of relativity to serve. You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love. And you can be that servant.
I know a man—and I just want to talk about him a minute, and maybe you will discover who I'm talking about as I go down the way because he was a great one. And he just went about serving. He was born in an obscure village, the child of a poor peasant woman. And then he grew up in still another obscure village, where he worked as a carpenter until he was thirty years old. Then for three years, he just got on his feet, and he was an itinerant preacher. And he went about doing some things. He didn't have much. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family. He never owned a house. He never went to college. He never visited a big city. He never went two hundred miles from where he was born. He did none of the usual things that the world would associate with greatness. He had no credentials but himself.
He was only thirty-three when the tide of public opinion turned against him. They called him a rabble-rouser. They called him a troublemaker. They said he was an agitator. He practiced civil disobedience; he broke injunctions. And so he was turned over to his enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. And the irony of it all is that his friends turned him over to them. One of his closest friends denied him. Another of his friends turned him over to his enemies. And while he was dying, the people who killed him gambled for his clothing, the only possession that he had in the world. When he was dead he was buried in a borrowed tomb, through the pity of a friend.
Nineteen centuries have come and gone and today he stands as the most influential figure that ever entered human history. All of the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned put together have not affected the life of man on this earth as much as that one solitary life.