I am taking the week to again pray and plan. There are a couple of meetings that I need to have with some key pastors and friends and then it is run away and listen.
A while back I had an interesting discussion with our friend, Rudy Carrasco, regarding capitalism and the poor. It, like everything else with me, blazed some rabbit trails that I have been on since that conversation last August.
It was the idea of INVESTMENT. This is not just an economic concept but it is also very spiritual. We are not a community of investors any more. We want to cash in and get out quickly. But investment means doing something today that pays off in the distant future. This is the mind of Christ. How do we look at what we are needing in 50 years so that we can beginning training, learning, and discipling today. I want to create a community, but it only begins today, it doesn't function well today. It is the heart from which this comes, not the flesh. Investing in tomorrow is a different heart than get it now. Could you imagine giving your life away for something that COULD still be around in 2000 years or more. Like, uhm, eternity?
I have been saying this for years but what we do this week of camp cannot nor should not be measured just by the faces on Saturday or the proverbial pinecones tossed on Wednesday, but by what is taking place in their lives in November or next March.
Investments are hard to monitor. My dad invests in the stock market and when I was growing up he kept a chart on his bathroom door of each stock and how they did that day. Everyday when he would come home from work (and I am thankful he did each day) he would put a mark on the graph to signify the day's worth. It was interesting for me to see this and talk with him about it. He had stock with a company, Baxter Labs. It didn't do much but stayed steady. I asked him why he invested in them and he told me he is committed for a least two years to a company. It takes time, he would say.
The reason I bring this up is I have real concerns for the future of the church. Who is going to lead? Who is going to teach children? Who are the worship leaders? Who are the ones that are going to invest in tomorrow's way of following Christ? This cannot be done if we are going to cash out today but we have to be seeking the spirit of Christ to direct our resources (time, money, people, thoughts, energy, natural environment, etc.) to do that which He will be doing in 2054.
We must invest in an education, not just academic but "understanding tools" which will give us abilities for carrying out the Way. I had some jobs that sucked but I see God using those abilities today. Those jobs put me in new situations with people who I would have never hung around with that gave me love and profound respect for them that is of immense value today. I learned to play guitar and piano 30 years ago, which is a part of the Way of today. The Kingdom is made up of the tools crafted years ago and adapted for today.
The seed planted today for the fruit of tomorrow.
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