I know what it’s like to put off things we need or scrape toward a payment due date, but really, the financial uncertainty that many of our friends live with is just plain terrible. Life for the working poor in America is a carefully constructed tower of cards and just one card slipping will bring the whole house down. Recently, one of our families had a car that broke down. The car that they didn’t have money to repair set in motion an almost unbelievable string of calamities great and small, causing fear, anger, heartache, tears and the crushing of faith and hope in a God who loves and cares.
October 2013
“Going to basketball practice today#feeling excited…”
This was a tweet from one of the kids on our basketball team. It was nice to see the boys getting excited about basketball starting up again. It takes so much work and effort to put our teams together. To be honest, when basketball season begins I inwardly groan because it automatically means a lot of time spent in the car for me. I spend so much time driving and picking up kids, usually in rush hour traffic. And in the winter I often find myself in the middle of a snowstorm driving down narrow streets which may or may not have been plowed. And no matter how often I tell them to be ready at a certain time it seems I’m always waiting in the car for someone.
But ironically, these are my most intensive times with the kids, while I’m in the car with them. I hear them tell each other stories about the day. I see how they interact with each other. Somehow I’m inconspicuous as an adult when I’m driving them places. We have lots of fun and laughs and many heart to heart conversations about life. This year the boys are always talking about their “girlfriends” and who likes who. It’s a great opportunity for me to chime in with my thoughts about girls and relationships. I know that if I’m prayed up, it is time that may have eternal significance. I’ve witnessed to many young people while picking them up or dropping them off home.
Our teams are designed to allow kids to play and have fun and experience playing on a sports team. Typically I start with a group of fifth graders and track with them each year through the eighth grade. This year I have seventh and eighth graders so these kids have been with us already for three or four years. Although once in a while we may have a really good team or a few outstanding players, the kids we get are not kids who typically go on to competitive high school sports. They are boys who need something positive and fun to do in their spare time. It’s hard to imagine, but an innocent activity like going to the park to play basketball can be fraught with danger and risk. Just last night while leaving the gym the air rang with gunshots nearby and soon police squad cars were patrolling the streets with their spotlights on.
It really is a critical time during which they mature from little boys to teenaged young men, experiencing the advent of puberty and all the physical, emotional and social changes attendant. Through our teams we create positive community with supportive peers and adults. It’s a crucial alternative to hanging out on the streets. Game days are times for the whole family to come out to support the team. Being involved in basketball gives our youth easy access to relationship with me, Lisa and other positive adults. Our players have opportunities to go to camp and are exposed to the gospel in a variety of ways.
It’s about so much more than basketball. To me, it’s a season of pouring myself out in a variety of intensive ways in order to be there in that moment when they are open and ready to hear about Christ and to receive Him. So, I’m going to basketball practice today… and I’m feeling very excited. Thank you for your support of this ministry through your prayers and gifts.
September 2013
It was a good summer in so many ways. We sent a happy van full to Kids Across America in June. That is always such a neat camp where there are so many young leaders who are hip and cool AND really excited about life with Jesus. It is such a good things for kids to get to be part of. The culture of their daily lives and our American culture, in general, is so jaded and consumerist and focused on so much that is not of lasting value, that it is really special to be immersed in a week of culture that is totally focused on things of eternal value.
Chris devoted quite a bit of time to loving kids through sports this spring/summer, coaching an additional aau season after our regular season concluded, so that a number of kids would get another chance to play ball before the inevitable narrowing that happens as the boys move into high school and opportunities become more limited except for the most talented. He also put together another Christ’s Children track team. It is hard to manage the track meets to fit in around camps and other things. But, as some of you know, the old track runner who competed through college, gets a lot of satisfaction out of bringing kids into a love of the sport. And, it is often wondrous to see the kids self-esteem grow as they practice and compete and feel the power of being good at something.
Our Manhood Camp was a special time for our family with Ezra being in his last year as a camper and Javan serving as a leader. That camp is always a highlight of every year when Chris focuses on the theme, a quote from the deceased, but still remembered urban leader Tom Skinner, “It takes God to be a Black man!” In our society today, there are so many models of manhood to observe, but few that bear emulation. It is a good time for the young men to be together and to really dialogue about what it means to be a man, a Black man, in our culture and society. This camp also, always includes the Underground Railroad Reenactment. We can gather with young men from two, ten, fifteen years ago and stories are always told about their experience of this at camp.
We had a surprise near the end of July when Owen, a young man in his mid-twenties, stopped by when he was in town. He told us of his job promotion, his family’s move to South Dakota, showed us pictures of his children. But most of all, he said he stopped by to say thank you because he wanted us to know that, though he hasn’t always kept in touch, his time with us was very significant to him in surviving the perils and pitfalls of growing up in challenging circumstances. He is trying to live a life that pleases God as a young husband and father and wanted us to know. Wasn’t that nice? Things like that don’t happen every day.
Unfortunately, the enjoyment of that unexpected grace was overshadowed days later by the loss that inevitably takes over all thoughts of summer. Our beloved Jereau, aged thirty, husband, father and friend to us and our ministry since the age of ten, died by suicide at the end of July. Only after it was too late, did we come to know that mental illness had overtaken him. Our hearts are broken and we wish he had been willing to let us know the depth of his struggle and despair. The despair that comes with clinical depression is not a moral or spiritual shortcoming, but an illness that needs treatment, help and compassion, just like any other.
So, as fall begins, we press on and we grieve. I started to cry on Sunday when I called out the number of Jereau’s song and I could hear his voice interjecting, “I AM someBODY!” We know that he, a child of the most high King, is indeed, safe with Jesus. We sure do appreciate your prayers.
August 2013
We’ve lost many kids over the years through gang and gun violence. However, our recent loss was one I never would’ve envisioned… Our friend Jereau, at the age of thirty, took his own life. Jereau was a good man with a strong, vibrant faith. We didn’t know, but he had been struggling for some time with severe depression. In spite of all the good things in his life, it was hard for him to see the light at the end of the tunnel. He was suffering from the deep pain that can come with mental illness and he hid it from all of us.
Jereau had beaten the odds. At thirty, he had outlived what I call, the “young black man’s curse”. It remains true today, that by the age of twenty-five, out of every four black boys growing up in inner city neighborhoods like this one, one has been killed, one has been in prison and one has been on drugs. Jereau was the one who survived to become a man. He grew up in poverty, in a gang infested neighborhood. He was surrounded by negative and criminal influences in his community, school and family. Nevertheless, he avoided trouble and chose positive paths and people for his life, graduating from high school and maturing to adulthood. I pointed to him often as a person for young boys in our ministry to emulate.
Tragically, this didn’t have to happen. His wife recognized that he was ill and needed help and took appropriate measures but the authorities she turned to did not heed her concerns about his mental health and failed to take the necessary precautions. In a moment of despair, Jereau took his life. I was the last person to spend time with him.
I’ll miss him dearly. He’d been with us since he was ten years old. I know he’s with the Lord. He was a model to me of the gentle strength of Black manhood. He was committed to his family. When his child was born with kidney failure and needed round the clock care, Jereau dropped everything to stay by his side day and night. Whenever he showed up at our house or came to church, he lit up the room with his jocular presence. He was a great role model and mentor to the boys in our ministry. I remember, when we went to Mexico on a mission trip, that he once took the shirt off his back and gave it to a street kid who admired it. He helped me often working with kids at camp or with basketball. He was a good friend. He loved the Lord. I’ll miss him dearly, but he’s still with us. In the Lord, he’s still with us and in Christ our family will be reunited again.
I got the news about Jereau on the first night of Manhood Camp. I was deeply shocked and the grief was overwhelming. My prevailing thought at the time was, “What’s the use? If something like this could happen to Jereau, something could happen to any one of the kids I’d ministered to over the years. Who knows what could happen to one of the fifteen boys who are with me now? What I do doesn’t make one bit of difference.” But the Lord spoke to me… not in words, but in images of memory, of people who had passed through this ministry and our lives, some who have passed on and some who are still with us. And when I came back to camp and the boys surrounded me, I felt that same burning desire, that unrelenting drive, that divine call instilled in me… to love, to help, to serve, despite the personal cost. It is all worth it… if we can bring just one into the Kingdom.
May 2013
“I love you coach!” A group of us were walking out of my house about to go to practice when Jay spoke up. “I love you too Jay” I replied… but Jay wasn’t finished. “Coach, I sure do appreciate you, you do a lot for us.” I’m thinking, Wow… it’s nice to be appreciated, I never get this kind of affirmation from kids. “Thanks man, I appreciate you appreciating me.” Then he says, “Seriously coach! You pick us up after school, get us for practice, do things with us, take us to camp… no other coach does that for us. I love you coach and I appreciate all you do for us.” Now I’m speechless… I don’t know what to say. So I just say, “Thanks.”
Jay became a Christian a year ago on one of our summer outings. I’ve known him since he was ten, as a volunteer in his fifth grade class. For the last four years we’ve hung out, playing basketball and other stuff. Last summer he gave his life to Christ. What you might find funny is that he never comes to church. I invite him regularly but he is often busy on the weekends. And this is why what we do is unique. You see, I’m always pastoring. We have church at our house on Sundays, and our attendance ranges from five to twenty on any given Sunday… But during the week I’m at school, at the gym, at the park, on the block, even in your house… and I’m always Pastor Chris. Some call me coach, some call me Mr. Chris, some say “momma who’s that man?” But I’m always Pastor Chris. My goal and prayer is to do what my name Christopher implies, to bring Christ. So even though Jay doesn’t come to church, church comes to him about three times a week; or rather, Christ comes to him. I see more than fifty kids a week this way, not to mention their families.
Jay has an effusive, engaging personality. He stays off the streets and avoids the trouble that plagues a lot of African American boys here by being involved in positive pursuits: family, school, sports. He plays on my basketball team. After he became a Christian he asked if he could invite some of his friends to play ball. I said yeah and through him I now have a half dozen new unchurched teenage boys on my team. And they don’t know it, but they’re at church too. We are about done with our spring season and when we are finished we will have a retreat where they will learn more about the gospel. They will have a chance to give their lives to Christ. I fully anticipate that most of them, if not all, will do so. Not because of my ministerial talents, but because that’s what God does. I’ve seen Him do it over and over and over again in this ministry. Many of our kids grow to be adults leading satisfied lives. Tragically, some do not. But anyone who participates in our ministry comes into contact with the gospel.
This summer we will have basketball, track, retreats, camps and other activities. Our kids have an opportunity to do fun and enriching activities, they cultivate relationships with positive adults, and they hear the gospel of Christ. A typical summer experience for one of our youth involves at least one camp experience, church on Sundays and many outings. This costs us about $350 per youth. We are asking you to pray and consider supporting our ministry this summer. Every little bit helps. Thanks for participating in this ministry with us through your prayers and gifts.
The Lord bless you and your family this summer…
April 2013
Bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my God, you are very great. Psalm 104:1
I love Jesus. There is such fullness of life that comes from living into our inheritance as children of God. I hope my life brings glory to God. I know that a life that lifts up Jesus is what I most desire. I felt that call when I was young and I feel it more deeply now that I am not so young anymore.
It is hard to believe that we are in the twentieth year of Christ’s Children Ministries. We certainly aren’t much of an organization. We don’t have a building or a passenger van. We don’t have a staff or offices and only through the persistence of friends have a website and Facebook page. Compared to many organizations, our footprint is small. Over the past number of years, when finances have been lean and costs for things like insurances and gas and rentals and the general cost of living for our family keep rising, we have had reason to carefully listen to discern if God was asking us to stay the course. It would indeed be a blessing if we grew better at fund raising. And we are not good networkers either. We certainly wouldn’t win any prizes as a non-profit success story. I, not infrequently, watch and pray and listen to discern if there is something else we should be doing.
That listening has led to me adding in spiritual direction as one of the things I give my time to. But that shift has been an adding on or expanding, not a turn away from the work of Christ’s Children. And what is this work God continues to call us to do? For some reason, God brings to us, children who might be overlooked or in the margin—the kid who isn’t making it in school, the one whose dad died through gun violence, the child whose parent is alcoholic or unstable. The families who have somehow ended up in our circle after the horrendous loss of an innocent child. And the kid who walked away as a teenager who came around again. We do what we can to shepherd them as they live life in Christ. We try to love and serve and teach and model what it looks like to live a life that is surrendered and entrusted to God.
Last month, we heard from one of our college guys. He was asking for help with some rent money as he was working on some new ways to make it through, but was in a short spot. His parents couldn’t help, so we got a call. Sometimes when we get these requests, we aren’t able to help because we don’t have the funds and we don’t cosign on loans. But, this was a request for a loan of $300. We could do that. I could hear the surprise and gratefulness echoing from the phone in Chris’s hand after I heard him say, “We don’t want you to try to pay it back. We are glad to help because we have it to give ”(Followed by a longer exhortation to keep seeking and following Jesus. J) How happy we are to be able to be that place to fall back upon that all children (even grown-up ones) need at times.
The world can be a hard place for many children without privileges many take for granted. But God has called us to be here to love some of those children and to do all that we can to help them know their identities as children of God. We wouldn’t have made it to this twentieth year without the body of Christ who faithfully supports us. Thank you for your gifts. May you find your joy in Jesus.
January 2013
How do you communicate the love of God to those around you? How do you respond when people make bad choices or make mistakes? What do you do when kids walk away?
Every single day, I ask God to help me be a communicator of the love of God in the world. Lots of times my directions are simple. God’s mother heart bestows lots of hugs and cooks meals, bakes treats, cheers at games, helps write papers…all actions that say, ”You are important. You are worthwhile. I do this for you because you matter.” And hopefully, that love and attention help people begin to notice those things come from the greater Source of all Love.
But it is so hard when, after days, weeks, months, years of sharing the love found in Christ Jesus and trying to help young people know and experience love and truth themselves, they lose interest, choose other pursuits or spurn the love that is offered by us. Once in awhile, kids disappear because they have screwed up and they feel ashamed. That one’s not so hard…who among us can cast the first stone? A few persistent invitations, a little space, sometimes a clearing of the air or a modeling on apology, forgiveness and reconciliation is often enough to restore our connection. But, sometimes, the space is real and definitely chosen. We are often identified with “God stuff” and a decision to separate from us can also signal what is really a choice to head out to see what the world offers instead of a life with God.
And really, aren’t there lots of grown-ups who have gone the same way? There is a time of growing in the love of God, but then we hear the call of power, money, influence, sex, success, etc. and we see if we can attain our share of all that and our paying attention to the still, small voice that calls us to our true home gets lost or drowned out. Sometimes the cares of the world, fear, and what feels like the fight to survive, can choke out the light and life that has come alive in us and we become lost, if even for just a little while.
There are people both young and old wandering in the wilderness. The prodigal-wilderness can fill an hour, a day, the time it takes to spend the inheritance or forty years. But the Father is always home, waiting, watching, in a place so near that we can be there instantly, just ready for the moment that we turn and listen to the voice of love.
Fear took hold of me today and I spent some moments in the wilderness. But I have learned through many years and much wrestling, that what is truly Real is always so much bigger than the things that make me afraid and I can return home where I live and move and have my being in Christ, where everything is ok, come what may. My true home is in the heart of Jesus and no place can be better. So, I understand the wandering and the wilderness and right along with the One who loves them best, I watch and wait and keep the porch light on for my wandering friends, hoping and praying that their time in the wilderness will be of short duration and that they will come on home so we can all have a party and enjoy being fully alive together.
Please pray that we would have wisdom in signaling the porch light is burning. That is often a much trickier exercise than getting to do straight-out-hands-on loving in Christ. We appreciate your prayers for our family and ministry. While costs are ever increasing, our funding is not, but we are trusting that as God calls, God will also provide. It is the season when we reflect with gratitude upon the persons who have chosen to support us financially in the past year. Thank you to our supporters in prayer and finances.
November 2012
We’ve been playing a board game in my mentoring groups called Hard Times. It’s a game similar to Monopoly, but with more real to life situations. It’s a game of the haves and have-nots. The object of the game is to basically achieve middle class success: you must find and hold a job, purchase a house, car, and other possessions, and pay your bills on time. In Hard Times, you do not automatically get a paycheck when you pass Go, you have to effectively find and apply for a job, which you may or may not get, depending on the roll of the dice. You can go through the whole game being “poor”, depending again on the roll of the dice. And hope that you don’t roll the dice and land on a hard times square… If you do that you must address some potentially life changing event such as unexpected medical expenses, family emergency or some other unforeseen crisis.
I’m playing with the four boys in this group and in the middle of the game I look around and two of the boys are in good shape. They have good jobs, they’ve been able to pay their bills on time and no unexpected, costly tragedies have hit them. The other two boys, however, are in bad shape. Neither have jobs: one of them has had a couple of good jobs, but lost them, the other has been chronically unemployed. They don’t have houses and all they receive for income is a small stipend to live on. One has children that he is unable to care for and the other cannot hold a job and has chemical dependency issues. Sometimes this game gets too real…
We’re playing this game and having a lot of fun. I mean, it’s just a game, right? But as I’m reflecting on the boys’ different positions within the game, I’m thinking, “Man, this really could be their lives as adults in ten or fifteen years.” This is why I play this game with them, to begin to expose them to the sober realities of life for poor black kids growing up in the inner city. In the game Hard Times, your social status, wealth, and opportunities come at the whim of chance… a roll of the dice. In real life it’s often that way as well. We don’t choose the families, cultures or settings we are born into and all of us go through life dealing with circumstances beyond our control. But this group of African American boys, for whom, statistically, life promises to be difficult, I teach they can expect to have decent, fulfilling lives if they can take responsibility for the circumstances in life which they can control such as behavior and attitude, and educational, moral and social choices… It can make all the difference in life.
We are in a season now when our collective American consciousness becomes more sensitive to the plight of the disenfranchised in our society. But I strive always to have God’s perspective on things. We are a society of the “haves” and “have nots”. People are often categorized on the basis of how much wealth they possess. Jesus said that those who have the Son of God have life, but those who do not have the Son of God do not have life. Life is more than what we possess, it’s about fulfillment, belonging and peace… eternal qualities only found in Christ.
Our prayerful goal is that all the children and families we encounter here may truly be haves… that they may have the knowledge of Jesus living inside of them… and that having this Knowledge they may receive life more abundant than they can imagine. Prayerfully consider joining us in this ministry through your prayers and gifts.
November 1, 2012
Today I met with a friend who is going through some hard times. She works full-time and is raising a family and last week her husband was diagnosed with a debilitating chronic illness. She is currently in the process of moving, because they couldn’t really afford the rent she was paying on her last home and needed to find something more affordable. The problem is that the home she can afford is in a neighborhood that is a little sketchy. She is feeling discouraged and sad because she wants her kids to live in a nice place. She wants a decent home and safety and decent neighbors like we all do.
I know a little about what that is like since I live in a place many consider sketchy as well. Over the many years that we have lived here, our home has been broken into and ransacked, our cars have been vandalized, our garage tagged with graffiti and more than a few persons have been murdered within a block or so of our front door. But, in spite of that, God has blessed our family and our children. We have had many good times, good neighbors and good memories in our years here.
Even so, I cannot minimize the sadness my friend feels because she cannot afford something nicer. She tells me that she is tired of being poor. Sometimes our finances are strained and there are times when I wish we had the money for our family to be able to do certain things or fix things in our house the way I would like to do, but I don’t know what it is like to struggle for survival all the time, when one setback can mean huge consequences for your family. It is no easy job being poor in America. Her pain is real.
There are some things, though, that I do know. James 2: 5 says: “Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?” I do know that being poor is nothing to be ashamed of in God’s kingdom. American culture worships wealth and success. But American culture is no reflection of God’s culture. The book of James is full of instruction and admonition to a church that was giving the front seat to those with power and wealth. That is not kingdom culture. God does not defer to the wealthy.
God has chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith. Living by faith means to keep following God and doing what is right. My friend and I talked about the Old Testament Joseph, who, when bad things were happening, kept choosing to honor God and do the right thing, even when the right thing landed him in prison. Can God bring good things even when we have to endure less-than-ideal circumstances?
God knows that it is not easy for a poor person in America to keep doing right. There are many injustices in our very system that encourage people to do something else.
But, I know God loves my friend and her family. I believe that God will honor her and her family and will help her children, even in these circumstances that she would not choose. Her part is to trust God for the faith to keep on and to keep trying every day to love God and do what is right. Pray with me that she and her family would continue to trust God so that she will be heir to the real fortune, the one that thieves cannot steal and rust cannot destroy. May we all know our true poverty and rejoice only in what is true wealth.
Spiritual Direction
For the past twenty-some years, I have served alongside Chris in our life of urban ministry, loving Jesus and serving children and families here in south Minneapolis. (Please add your email address if you would like to be notified when newsletters and blog posts are added or see pictures on our Christ’s Children Ministries Facebook page).
It has been my joy to share in the lives of so many young people over the years. But, the kind of ministry that crosses lines of race, culture and economic background is not for the faint-hearted. I have learned so much about myself, my own brokenness, about patience, about letting go of my own need for control, about waiting, learning that people must make their own choices, about listening with an open heart. When crossing cultures, it can take years of love and commitment with folks to reach a place of real trust and relationship. It is at that place that my spiritual gifts and natural talents find their deepest expression and I find the most enjoyment.
It was really a great thing, about a decade ago, when I began leading spiritual direction groups. It gave me another opportunity to work with people who had a desire to focus on their life with God and were seeking the kind of careful listening and prayerful environment I could facilitate. (For a glimpse of the spiritual direction experience, read a blog post by a past participant at: http://tracypnothomeyet.blogspot.com/2012/10/tending-soul.html )
As I did that work, God planted in me a desire to also offer those gifts to individuals in spiritual direction. For a number of years, fear and worries about finances kept me from following that call. But, as some of you know, this past May in the same week that Nathanael graduated from high school, I received my certificate in spiritual direction after completing a two-year course of study. This was the realization of a long-held desire and affirmation of a call to more ministry that God has prepared for me to do.
Sometimes people wonder what spiritual direction is all about or think it seems kind of new-agey. In fact, it is a spiritual discipline that dates back to the early church. Spiritual direction is really about providing prayerful listening, support and encouragement to someone who has a desire to grow in love and relationship with God. It has qualities that are similar to discipleship, mentoring and pastoral counseling, but is different from those forms of support because in spiritual direction the emphasis is not so much focused on a problem or desired point of growth as it is focused on helping an individual listen and pay attention to the way God is present in his or her own life. It is often engaged in by those who have a long relationship with God and are noticing an invitation to new growth or experiencing changes in their life with God.
So, in addition to continuing to partner in our work with kids and families, I will also be offering individual and group spiritual direction for those who are looking for someone to companion them as they grow in love and relationship with God. It is good to meet with people in person, but it may be done by telephone or Skype as well. I hope that this work will also help financially support our ministry with Christ’s Children. I don’t have a huge personal network, so I am relying on all of you who know me to put the word out or to let me know if you yourself would like to consider the discipline of spiritual direction.
You may call or email me at christschildrenministries@gmail.com if you would like to talk more about spiritual direction if you or someone you know may be interested.
Christ's Children Ministries 