Back for Good...

Last week, I went on a "mission immersion" to inner city Chicago as part of a class on Mission in Context. I and 8 other seminary students got to encounter several different churches in the city and reflect on how they addressed their own mission within the context of and urban environment, with quite varying methods.

It was a very eye opening experience, not in how shocking it was, but instead in how accessible it was. It made me reflect on how we do ministry over all, and that we often neglect to see the rural or suburban churches that most people live in as mission fields, but only look to the inner cities. The rural and suburban churches tend to become complacent "social clubs" and any idea of active mission is met in the form of mission trips or aid to the inner cities or Mexico or the Gulf Coast.

This is not to say that these areas are not important areas of need, but rather that we are often neglecting the needs of those in the communities that we serve. One of the pastors that we talked to put it into an interesting perspective: "The poor are everywhere. There are rich people that are poor, there are people on welfare that are poor. You don't have to come to the city to find them."

This made me reflect on how most people tend to live as though they are poor. By that I mean that most of us live for what we don't have rather than what we do have. We are constantly pining or saving for a better house, a better car, a better video game system, a better computer, a better phone - a better life. We don't recognize our blessings, but instead we simply let out lives be ruled by that which we desire. Yet once we attain that stuff, there is always something new to desire, that is just out of our reach.

At any rate, I could go off on that for a while, but I digress. One of the key things that I personally took away from last week, was a personal challenge to adjust my priorities, and to make more time for regular study and reflection. Ironically, I would group this blog in with the goal of "reflection."

In that light, I restate my previously false claim to blog on a regular basis, if even to note something small. It will help me to be more disciplined in my taking time to process things, and hopefully in engaging in some sort of dialog with folks that I don't get to see on a regular basis.

So check back somewhat regularly, and I should be here, leaving thoughts. Comment on them and we can talk about it.

boom,
Tyler

Random thought for today:
I'm much more sad about the death of Heath Ledger than I would have expected.


Here are the congregations that we visited:

The Rock Church
http://circleurban.org/pages/rockchurch.shtml

Lawndale Community Church
http://lawndalechurch.org

The House
http://thahouse.org

First United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple
http://www.chicagotemple.org

4th Presbyterian Church of Chicago
http://www.fourthchurch.org

WICKERPARK GRACE
http://www.wickerparkgrace.net