Guess Which Rock this is?

Some time last summer

California Dreaming

Okay so this is the way it will go for me. Two blogs back to back and then a huge hiatus as I travel from Ghana to the U.S. I had six days with my buddy Andy and my spiritual mentor Al in Santa Rosa. Great time, great church...look up www.newvintagechurch.org. Things are different here. They have people in recovery coming off the street and people who own corporations in San Francisco and they all hang out together under the same roof. Lots of tatoos and lots of nice clothes and they all mix together. I met at least two people maybe more who said, "this is the first time that I've ever been to church." I don't know about you but man do I love that. I love hanging out with people who know nothing about God or church. They don't know the stuff that goes into the history. They are fresh and open and hungry. I love giving Bible illustrations and talk about relationships and I say, "Adam had...." One or two said "Eve." And then I said, "Moses had...." and most had no idea who went with Moses...Aaron. Wow, pure and simple ignorance that is not stupidity, just not knowing something.

Wouldn't you love to walk along people who know nothing about God and everything you share with them is fresh and new...you have to talk differently, say things differently. I love that. You can't speak Christianese around these people. They don't get it. The other side of that is the staleness that happens in churches where everybody is the same and you speak the same language and the word that comes to mind is redundant. I think about Christianity in most churches and it seems redundant, lacking passion, lacking diversity.

Now, let me tell you the miracle...I preached and it was pretty good in my opinion but that's not the point. We talked about "coming to the table" and my points were: 1.You don't have to come alone, 2.You don't have to get it all right before you come to the table and lastly, 3.Jesus is the chair that meets you at the table that wants to take your whole being on HIM. That was okay and I think they got it and then I said, "I want to invite everyone to the table." So I just asked the whole congregation to get up out of their seats and come up on stage and come around the table and hold hands and I prayed for them and it was one of those holy moments. Everybody came because they didn't know better and they felt safe and not condemned and they felt love in that moment.

So I'm California dreaming. Dreaming of a time when we'll begin to reach out to the lost. When was the last time you hung out with a lost person? You might find it quite interesting.

Searing Memory

This picture is of two little Ghanaian boys who go to school in a rural village. Maybe their parents make about $300-400 a year, not a week or even a month...a year. But they go to school and they are trying to make a way to succeed in this world that is not waiting or helping in any substantial way...That's life here in Ghana.

But the message for this one is not about those two boys or the abject poverty that is prolific throughout the country, it's about Claire and I going for a walk in our neighborhood the other night. We were walking down our street which happens to be one of the few that is unpaved in our neighborhood. We live in East Legon which is a nice area with a lot of nice houses that wealthy Ghanaians have built through the years. Most of them rent them to foreigners from anywhere from $800-3500 per month. Our rent is actually the cheapest of all our fellow co-workers in the area. We were blessed to find such a place. In the midst of these houses worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, 200 yards from our house a family of five or six, one mom and several small children, live in a wooden hut, cook outside all the time and survive day to day. So that's the look of things.

As we rounded the corner there were two young kids studying by kerosene lantern right off the road and they were keeping the "shop" of dry goods their mom had set up to sell sugar, canned fish, oil, peanuts, Milo and tea bags. It was probaly 7:30 and they were straining to do their homework with that one kerosene lantern. Of course my beloved stopped and said in Twi, "What are you studying?" And they replied in perfect English, "English." So she encouraged them to keep studying hard. And we walked on.

How many of you growing up griped about homework in your rooms with carpet, desks, lamps, a/c, heat, everything you needed. You know why my Ryan loves Ghana? You know why we love Ghana? Because everyday we see incredible things like this, two little kids straining at a kerosene lantern to learn and do well in school in hopes of going further than their mom or dad and hoping they can afford school fees for junior high or high school.

Just be grateful. Try not to gripe or whine as much.

Now you know why Ghana ruins us.

First things First

Welcome to my blog. Who came up with the word blog and what does it really mean? Let me introduce my family...I'm Michael, Anna is right behind me (17), then Luke,(8), and Maggie is our blond 14 year old and then my beautiful Claire.


I don't really understand all of this but my incredible assitant, Ms. Tatum Downs is trying to thrust me into the post modern world. So I'm launching out into unknown territory for me. This originally struck me as an excercise in narcissism, feeling like the words we write are somehow valued, special and important. I didn't like the original concept, especially the comments thing because if no one comments, does that mean what you said wasn't worthy of response or no one loves me or what. And as I've read through many different blogs, I now realize it is the random thoughts of folks who just want to throw it out there and see what happens.

First the explanation of Sankofa...of course it comes from Ghana where I live and it is an Adinkra symbol which literally means "return and get it." But the deeper meaning is "return to your roots." Or in my words don't forget where you come from. Family is of course high on my list of priorities. So that is that.

My second reason for blogging was that I kept getting these great thoughts and sermon ideas and scribbling them on paper and then they get accumulated in some pile and I eventually just threw them away. Now I'm going to throw them on my blog and maybe they'll have some value for someone, including myself.

That's it...not too painful...still feels weird...that you post words on a screen for your friends to read and respond or not respond to.