An open letter to an inquirer...

Dear friend,
I am sorry that I did not answer your email before I saw you. I am glad to know that you took the initative to bring your friend up with you to check out Calvin Crest and those participating in CommonFire.

I want to reiterate something...
CommonFire is not a program but a community. It is not meant to teach one anything but be there as they learn and help facilitate the questions. I have been doing a lot of thinking about it and I am not convinced that another program is the answer, rather what is needed is let's bring people to a place to labor and live who will love others and be loved by others. Young people will leave an academic environment, a huge program, and get out into society to live amongst people with differing views and beliefs. With reciprocity, they give and take, love and be loved, have dialogues, get frustrated and angry, invest and cashout, educate and be educated, eat and feed, clean up and make a mess, and a myriad of other things that keep the economy rolling.

To go from program to program is self centered and causes a stifled life. At some point we get on the merry-go-round and return with interest that which we have been given as stewards to make this life centered in the Kingdom of God. We pay back the investment!

I am sure you have read Ecclesiastes and know that there are seasons of life, filled with emotions, trials, successes, births, deaths, jobs, retirement, etc... and it is good to be programmed for a while. "Train up a child in the way..." is a good word, but there is a time when we need to leave and carry on the work God has for us. CommonFire is a safe, not easy, place for that transition to take place. Bosses will not always be Jesus, money will not always solve the problem, things will wearout, stuff happens..., but this should be a place to try out our hearts, spirits, and gifts.

We never ask anyone to check their flesh in when they come, so people will be themselves, and that doesn't always look "christian" nor nice. When people who's salvation is in the death and resurrection of Jesus, our Lord, don't get enough sleep they are no different that those who are without faith. Fear causes rust in the soul of all men and women regardless of faith. Crankiness, selfishness, self preservation are in the fabric of all of us, we pray that flesh would be crucified and rejoice when it is but I am never caught offguard when it isn't. We wrestle, struggle, and contend for the His Spirit to take that which we yield. We are a celebrated mixture of spirit and selfwill. Able to drop the enemy with one little word, if only we would speak from our spirit instead of our flesh.

Some of the men and women who are there model, I believe, a healthy life. Learning more of the power of God and letting Him demonstrate it in their lives. They are not perfect but they trust God to use them to love those He would give them.

I do love the men and women of CommonFire. I do hope you will come and join us next season.