Multiplying disciples with marbles

"In my own life," Howard Hendricks said several years ago, " I can recall several profoundly influential figures who were strategically used by God to change the course of my life." 

"The first was a man named Walt. Had it not been for Walt, I seriously doubt whether I would have ever become a follower of Jesus Christ." 


God often chooses to use ordinary folks to be His disciples and do life-changing, multiplying disciple-making.  People are impacted by changed people who love other people toward walking with God.

Mike and Travis, an accountant and an engineer in our church family, are these kind of men.  Each man just took off on "another level" with their Sunday School classes. 

Disciple-making lifts ministries into new stratospheres

Both were "out of the box" guys but never saw it, really.  They wouldn't say they are creative, either. They put together special events with their curriculum of loving disciple-making. Classes were invited to their homes for games and pizza. It became common place to witness these men using a curb on our church campus to talk to the boys one-on-one.  The boys loved these men.

"Mike" and "Travis" are everywhere in our churches.  They are following Jesus as His disciples and serving as His ministers in and all around the church.  Some go into our communities and even around the world.  Some go to the streets and into jails and prisons. 

Disciple-making men and women are artists, accountants, bakers, computer geeks, custodians, engineers, fruit growers, gamers, nurses, physicians, software engineers, mothers, and dads, grandpas and grandmas. 

Disciple-making begins on the ground
"I came from a broken home," Hendricks recounted. "My parents were separated before I was born, and neither one paid much attention to my spiritual condition. To put it bluntly, I could have lived, died, and gone to hell without anyone even bothering to care. 

"But Walt cared. He was part of a tiny church in my neighborhood that developed a passion to affect its community for Christ.

“One day, he asked me, Would you like to play marbles?”

"Walt’s passion was to reach nine-and ten-year-old boys like me with the gospel. I’ll never forget that Saturday morning I met him. I was sprawled out on a Philadelphia sidewalk playing marbles. Suddenly someone was standing beside me. I looked up to see this gangly guy towering over me—all six feet, four inches of him. My mouth sort of dropped open.

“Hey, son, how would you like to go to Sunday school?” he asked.

"That was an unfortunate question. To my mind, anything that had the word “school” in it had to be bad news. So I shook my head no.

Disciple-making talks their language
But Walt was just getting started. “How would you like to play marbles?” he asked, squatting down. Now, he was talking my language!

Younger Howard Hendricks

“Sure!” I replied, and quickly set up the game. As the best marble player on the block, I felt supremely confident that I could whip this challenger fairly easily.

"Would you believe he beat me in every single game! In fact, he captured every marble I had. In the process, he captured my heart. I may have lost a game and a bit of pride that day, but I gained something infinitely more important—the friendship of a man who cared. 

"A big man, an older man, a man who literally came down to my level by kneeling to play a game of marbles. From then on, wherever Walt was, that’s where I wanted to be.

Disciple-making builds into lives
"Walt built into my life over the next several years in a way that marked me forever. He used to take me and the other boys in his Sunday school class hiking. I’ll never forget those times. He had a bad heart, and I’m sure we didn’t do it any good, running him all over the woods the way we did. 

"But he didn’t seem to mind, because he cared. In fact, he was probably the first person to show me unconditional love.

Disciple-making models faithfulness
"He was also a model of faithfulness. I can’t remember a time that he ever showed up to his Sunday school class unprepared. Not that he was the most scintillating teacher in the world. In fact, he had almost no training for that. Vocationally, he worked in the tool and die trade. But he was for real, and he was also creative. He found ways to involve us boys in the learning process—an approach that made a lasting contribution to my own style of teaching.

Disciple-making incarnates Christ
Overall, Walt incarnated Christ for me. And not only for me, but for thirteen other boys in my neighborhood, nine of whom also came from broken homes. Remarkably, eleven of us went on to pursue careers as vocational Christian workers—which is ironic, given that Walt himself completed school only through the sixth grade. It just goes to show," Hendricks concluded, "that a man doesn’t need a Ph.D. for God to use him to shape another man."

Disciple in the Biblical context simply means one who follows and learns from a teacher. The disciple is mentored by another.  The curriculum is knowing Christ.  It doesn't require a Bible School, Seminary education, nor a library of books.  Published curriculum is helpful but isn't necessary.  The disciple's handbook is the Bible and the most faithful work life-on-life.

Using Mike, Travis, Walt, Howard, and 13 boys, disciple-making starts where we meet people and where we want to invite them to join us.  That's great for me because it tells me I can do it where the person I am meeting with and I are safest.  

At Prisoners for Christ, we have a pen pal ministry.  Letter writing is a form of disciple-making. Women are great at writing letters.  There is a long list of male inmates who requested a faithful man to write them.  They are still waiting. 

Disciple-making passionately serves
Dawson "Daws" Trotman founded the Navigators ministry and summarized disciple-making as, “a passionate call to maturity, spiritual reproduction and spiritual parenting to help fulfill the Great Commission,” in his text, "Born to reproduce."

19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. 

~Matthew 28:19-20

Effective disciple-making, Trotman taught, was based on three principles:
1. Remember, nothing under heaven except sin, immaturity, and lack of communion will put you in a position where you cannot reproduce.

The Daws Trotman enthusiasm

2. But when all things are right between you and the Lord, regardless of how much or how little you know intellectually, from the standpoint of the world, you can be a spiritual parent And that incidentally, may be when you are very young in the Lord. 

3. The Gospel spread to the known world during the first century without radio, television, or the printing press, because these produced men who were reproducing. 

When Daws started the Navs, there was no internet nor social media, both can be tools for disciple-making.  There are many articles, booklets, and books available to do this disciple-making.  You can fill in blanks together or read and discuss chapters.  What might work best for you?  You can start by simply meeting a need or acting on Paul's "one another" passages.




Disciple-making loves Christ into the lives of others
This ministry requires time and love.  Disciple-makers love people enough to spend time with them. It is more than a casual conversation at the grocery story or in between services. Spending time together is incredibly flexible because it can be doing many things. 

Daws recounts the story, repeated many times over, of Sally, a young woman telephone worker who received Christ as her Savior at a Billy Graham Crusade.  She found Pat, who wanted to learn about Jesus, who became another faithful woman.  They followed Christ together.  Sally had a daughter in Christ.  After awhile, Pat met Sue and they did the same thing. Sally was now a spiritual grandmother and Pat had a spiritual daughter.

"How was this done? God used the pure channel of these young Christians’ lives in their exuberance and first love for Christ, and out of their hearts the incorruptible seed of the Word of God was sown in the hearts of other people."  ~"Born to reproduce" 

Solitary hiding place

"I am afraid what will happen after I am released.  I don't want to be a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," Ron confided.

Ron is an inmate at the Norm Maleng Regional Justice Center, in Kent, Washington where I serve as a chaplain through Prisoners for Christ Outreach Ministries. 

Over several months, he completed Bible studies, meets with several solid chaplains and appears to be progressing in daily faith.

Men may show signs of being responsive. They experience stress and take steps to change their lives.  They want to live a better life but are not certain what that will look like.

They will have to change their behaviors.  They need to have a definitive plan and support to live differently.  They aren't sure they want to do that.  

Some want to change because they think God will be proud of them.  Really, they will get out of jail quicker.  They want a "get out of jail" card.

If they are looking for this quick out, they will be sadly disappointed.  They are going to face the court.  There are consequences for what they are guilty of.  My heart is to care for them whether they are innocent or guilty and whatever the courts and lawyers determine. 

I tell them circumstances may get more complicated after they choose to follow Jesus.

One officer this last week said to me, "Over the years, I have learned you can't tell the book by its cover."

Ron wants to be sure he continues in the faith after leaving the jail.  His wife is not saved and she is not certain what is happening in Ron's life.  

His old "fellow users" are in his neighborhood. As his release date approaches, he worries about what is out there.  He knows how he acted before he came into jail. 

For some, change goes as far but no further than talking to fellow inmates. Some request prayer and talk a couple of times.  Others examine their lives and want to hear about walking in faith--we might meet 10 or more times.

Many attended church as a child.  They participated with church and would say they are Christians. They remember praying grandparents or a faithful mother. In staggering numbers, inmates do not have a solid father in their lives--he is often not part of their lives.  
I start asking simple questions... 

• Could you share your testimony with me?  
• What is your spiritual journey?  
• Have you attended church?  
• Do you have a Bible in your room...are you reading it?
• Would you like to read with me?
• How may I pray with you, right now?

                                 Jesus, Jesus, Jesus
I just listen and keep asking questions, praying along the way.  The Lord may lead me to a passage of Scripture.  They may want me to pray. When they see I genuinely listened and prayed with them, I a great ministry may be accomplished.  

I start, often with us reading together the conversion testimony of Charles Spurgeon.  Here it is...

Charles H. Spurgeon

"On a memorable sixth day of January, 1850, at 15, Charles Spurgeon rose before the sun, to pray and to read one of his bedside books. He found no rest.

"I cried to God with groaning—I say it without exaggeration—groaning that cannot be uttered! And oh, how I sought, in my poor dark way, to overcome first one sin and then another, and so to do better, in God's strength, against the enemies that assailed me, and not, thank God, altogether without success, though still the battle had been lost unless He had come who is the Overcomer of sin and the Deliverer of His people, and had put the hosts to flight."

Jesus. Jesus. JESUS! He alone, He without another, had become the solitary hiding place against the storm. 

I sometimes think I might have been in darkness and despair until now, had it not been for the goodness of God in sending a snowstorm one Sunday morning, while I was going to a certain place of worship. I turned down a side street, and came to a little Primitive Methodist Church.

In that chapel there may have been a dozen or fifteen people. I had heard of the Primitive Methodists, how they sang so loudly that they made people’s heads ache; but that did not matter to me.

I wanted to know how I might be saved.

The minister did not come that morning; he was snowed up, I suppose. At last a very thin-looking man, a shoemaker, or tailor, or something of that sort, went up into the pulpit to preach. Now it is well that preachers be instructed, but this man was really stupid. He was obliged to stick to his text, for the simple reason that he had little else to say.  

The text was—"LOOK TO ME AND BE SAVED, ALL THE ENDS OF THE EARTH." (Isaiah 45:22)

He did not even pronounce the words rightly, but that did not matter. There was, I thought, a glimmer of hope for me in that text.  The preacher began thus:

"This is a very simple text indeed. It says ‘LOOK.’ Now, looking don’t take a deal of pain. It doesn't require lifting your foot or your finger, It is just ‘look.’ Well, a man needn’t go to college to learn to look. Nobody needs a huge salary to look. You may be the biggest fool, and yet you can look. Anyone can look; even a child can look. But then the text says, ‘Look to Me.’ Ay!" he said in broad Essex, "many of you are looking to yourselves, but it’s no use looking there.

“You’ll never find any comfort in yourselves. Some say look to God the Father. No, look to Him by-and-by. Jesus Christ says, ‘Look to Me.’ Some of you say ‘We must wait for the Spirit’s workin.’ You have no business with that just now. Look to Christ. 
The text says, ‘Look to Me.’ "Then the good man followed up his text in this way:

Look to Me; I am sweatin’ great drops of blood.

Look to Me; I am hangin’ on the cross.

Look to Me, I am dead and buried.

Look to Me; I rise again.

Look to Me; I ascend to Heaven.

Look to Me; I am sitting at the Father’s right hand.

O poor sinner, look to Me!   Look to Me!"

When he had managed to spin out about ten minutes or so, he was at the end of his tether. Then, he looked at me under the gallery, and I daresay with so few present, he knew me to be a stranger. Just fixing his eyes on me, as if he knew all my heart, he said, "Young man, you look very miserable." Well, I did, but I had not been accustomed to have remarks made from the pulpit on my personal appearance before. However, it was a good blow, struck right home. He continued, "And you will always be miserable—miserable in life and miserable in death—if you don’t obey my text; but if you obey now, this moment, you will be saved." Then lifting up his hands, he shouted, as only a Primitive Methodist could do,

"Young man, turn to Jesus Christ. Look!  Look! Look! You have nothing to do but look and live!"

I saw at once the way of salvation. I know not what else he said—I did not take much notice of it—I was so possessed with that one thought . . . .

I had been waiting to do fifty things, but when I heard that word, "Look!" what a charming word it seemed to me.

Oh! There and then the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away, and that moment I saw the sun; and I could have risen that instant, and sung with the most enthusiastic of them, of the precious blood of Christ, and the simple faith which looks alone to Him. 

Oh, that somebody had told me this before, "Trust Christ, and you shall be saved." 

Yet it was, no doubt, all wisely ordered, and now I can say—

"E’er since by faith I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply, Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die. . ."

That happy day when I found the Savior, and learned to cling to His dear feet, was a day never to be forgotten by me . . . . I listened to the Word of God and that precious text led me to the cross of Christ.  

I can testify that the joy of that day was utterly indescribable. I could have leaped, I could have danced; there was no expression, however fanatical, which would have been out of keeping with the joy of that hour.

Many days of Christian experience have passed since then, but there has never been one which has had the full exhilaration, the sparkling delight which that first day had. I thought I could have sprung from the seat in which I sat, and called out with the wildest of those Methodist brethren . . .

"I am forgiven! I am forgiven! A monument of grace! A sinner saved by blood!"

My spirit saw its chains broken to pieces; I felt that I was an emancipated soul, an heir of heaven, a forgiven one, accepted in Jesus Christ, plucked out of the miry clay and out of the horrible pit, with my feet set upon a rock and my goings established. Between half-past ten o’clock, when I entered that chapel, and half-past twelve o’clock, when I was back again at home, what a change had taken place in me!

Simply by turning to Jesus I had been delivered from despair, and I was brought into such a joyous state of mind that, when they saw me at home, they said to me, "Something wonderful has happened to you," and I was eager to tell them all about it.  

Oh! There was joy in the household that day, when all heard that the eldest son had found the Savior and knew himself to be forgiven."

            My solitary hiding place against the storms

Tears start falling for some in the the first couple of paragraphs.  "Jesus. Jesus. JESUS! He alone, He without another, is my solitary hiding place against the storms in my life." 

As we read together, I am praying the Lord will use this testimony to touch this man's heart.  I want to learn how genuinely interested they are in seeking repentance and forgiveness for their sins. 

Now, what are they willing to say about where are they really at?  Where do they stand with Jesus?  Are they just looking for a way out, again?

Looking or turning to Jesus goes directly with believing and repentance.  The sinner changes his mind and turns away from his or her old life.  

Life with Jesus is all about the person. Repenting people look or turn directly to God through Jesus Christ and bring their sins to Him.

The inmate finds out they thought they were Christians but never heard of any of this before....or, they have prayed numerous times to be saved. 

Some "prayed the salvation prayer" repeatedly only to walk out of their jail and prison experience and returned to their old experiences. They may be saved and have stumbled badly and repeatedly. We need to be discussing walking in obedience and what it means to be His disciple.  

Like every inmate, I have scrapes on my knees and elbows to prove it.  My sins are different than theirs... but we are all sinners.  I am His and He is mine. I am loved by a great God.  I am forgiven based on what Jesus accomplished, once and for all.  

I don't need to keep asking Jesus to save me.  He already saved me.  The repenting one needs to obey the commands of Jesus and grow up in godliness.

The priority is always about Jesus.  Jesus calls for repentance from the heart, receive forgiveness and be saved, and be His disciple.  Following Jesus, being His disciple means obedience to the truth.  

That is where we start.  I may ask them to read John 3:1-21, 10:1-10-27-29 and John 14:1-6 and 15:1-16.  

  

Angry skeletons

"Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back–in many ways it is a feast fit for a king.

"The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you."

―Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), 2.

Proverbs 6:16-19 

These "seven deadly sins," as they were coined, are outlined by Solomon.

16 There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him:

17 haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,

18 a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil,

19 a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.

These are six things our great and awesome God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, hates.  In the next phrase, The seventh, "one who sows discord among brothers," reaches the level of abomination.  God hates sin. That ought to make me fear His discipline and bow down to worship Him in holy humility.

The six, and seven, things are:

1. haughty eyes

2. a lying tongue

3. hands that shed innocent blood

4. a heart that devises wicked plans

5. feet that make haste to run to evil

6. a false witness who breathes out lies

7. one who sows discord among brothers

Memorizing this text through our church Awana program several years ago, we noted these things run from head to toe.  They run from our eyes to our tongue three times, to our hands and finally to our heart.   

Feast anger
The exact word "anger," doesn't appear.  Angry behaviors run right through virtually it all.  The haughty eyes are prideful and can lead to angry responses to others.  A lying tongue is angry.  Hands shedding innocent blood are angry.  Hearts devising wicked plans. Angry.  Feet running to evil. Angry. False witness lying mentioned twice in 17 and 19.  Initiating anger.  Sowing discord among family and friends is anger boiling over. 

Domestic violence and no contact orders are really common among the male inmates, their families, in relationships among themselves where I serve as a chaplain at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent through PFC.

Feast experiences
I watched anger in my schools growing up and right through my Masters level work.  I saw it in the middle schools where I worked as a special ed teacher among certain students, other teachers, and administrators. 

I experienced anger among youth teams I played on, later reported on as a newspaper sports reporter, and those I later I coached.  In one season in particular, I acted out. 

I experienced wrath and anger in the churches I have attended. Some are very angry in churches. I was angry especially in one of the churches where I was the pastor. People I thought were caring stirred up trouble to cause divisions among their friends.  

There was anger flashing in my home growing up and with our own home. I grew up in a great, caring family with loving parents and a brother and sister. 

When I think it is everybody else, sometimes the Lord wakes me up in the middle of the night. It was me.  He reminded me of events.  I experienced anger in other people who hurt me.  I was angry toward others so I hurt them.  That is the definition of dysfunction.  Hurting people hurt people.  God hates these things.  They are abominations, He said.    


Feast turned
Buechner said," In many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you."

Anger "licks it's wounds."  The angry person wants to feel sorry for himself.

Anger "smacks its lips over grievances past." The angry person keeps remembering and rolling over what happened.  The grievance was from a long time ago.

Anger revels in "rolling over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come."  The angry person rehearses with other people what might never happen.  The more the future confrontation is considered, bitterness grows.  The confrontation has not even happened. Anger may easily escalates into confrontation with listeners who are not involved.

"Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees,and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled..."  ~Hebrews 12:12-15

Anger "savors to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back."  This is a twisted pleasure.  Savoring something at a great holiday meal means we appreciate the smell, taste or feeling of a particular dish. The angry man or woman works over pain they are experiencing and what they are dishing out. 

Writing as an acute gift

"This is a gift I have, simple, simple; a foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures,

shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions...But the gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it."  ~William Shakespeare on writing

Seeking to rekindle my writing, I rechecked a book out of the library. Shakespeare's gift is the process of writing, whether anybody else reads it or not.  

The book is, "The writer's idea book--How to develop great ideas for fiction, nonfiction, poetry and screenplay," by Jack Heffron.

I dabbled with his writing prompts and it was very helpful to stimulate right activities to write.  I discovered blogs.  His book carried me a long way.  I need his friendship and mentoring in my writing, again.

I also appreciate Ralph Fletcher's, "A writer's notebook--unlocking the writer within you."  This is a very helpful text for youth and adults in small book, 137 pages.

Ralph encourages writers to maintain their own, customized notebook with seed thoughts, prompts, pictures and themes.  Creating a notebook is all about experimenting.  I tried to use it with special education middle school students.  It seems far more productive for me/


The gift I have, simple, simple
My path of writing started in junior high and high school.  My Mom had me write family Christmas letters. My parents were always so encouraging. I still have a set of magazine articles from my great aunt on writing. It looked so good but sitting still and concentrating that long was imposing.  I wanted to shoot my basketball or play catch. Always diversion and distractions from the gift.  Still, I was already on my lifelong path of writing.

Family and friends told me how much they appreciated my hand-written letters.  I hadn't started using my Smith Carona typewriter. Word processors and computers were in the next decade.  

I started sports writing in high school. Readers were very encouraging.  I focused on journalism at Green River Community College and graduated with a bachelors degree in communications journalism from Washington State University.  

While working at Boeing in Auburn, I was a procedures writer and published a "Good news at work" monthly newsletter circulated in several sites, even as far as Wichita.  

In the mid-1980s, I participated in writers critique groups and had a couple of articles published in smaller Christian magazines.  I attended several writing conferences in Washington and Oregon. Other published writers gave me loving pushes and some strong exhortations, to keep writing.  I journaled in three-ring notebooks for a long time.  I was hopeful and productive in my writing. As a pastor, I wrote many sermons and Bible studies.

Then, I was engulfed in painful experiences around my pastoral ministry and a succession of job losses.  I entered what John Bunyan described as a "slough of despond."  

I was hurt and very angry.  The writing changed alot. 

I was writing then but it wasn't the same.  Our great God was teaching me about pride and humility through His University of life.  I needed and finally received counseling for anger.

I am engaging where I feel acute pleasure in writing.  Often, I publish these blog posts. Other times, I write and edit emails. 

I may be able to get published other places but it doesn't matter where or if I am published anywhere else.  Writing is a gift from the Lord for others and me.  

When I living in a simple, focused gift,  I I move from I have to to I want to.  

The gift becomes acute.  Even after I publish, more editing cycles are needed. The long process of writing, editing several times, and publishing helps me to think about other ideas to keep writing.  

Do you need to rekindle gifting?

• loving your spouse...  
• caring for your children...  
• praying... 
• participating in or leading a small group...
• writing songs or lyrics...
• writing poetry...
• playing an instrument...

What are good, acute pleasure gifts in your life?

Extravagant spirit in finding Scanectady

A Scanectady rose garden

An extravagant spirit motivates the writer to keep at it.  Writing gets me into a place where I concentrate.  I write, stop, and write more.  I need to do other legitimate things so I put it aside.  When I am in the writing mode, I am thinking about my writing while I am doing those other things.  There is always more editing.

Sci-fi author Ray Bradbury was asked where he gets story ideas. He quipped his ideas come from "The Scanectady Center for Ideas."  Where is that?  It doesn't exist.  

An extravagant spirit finds great ideas to start writing. When I don't write regularly, my ideas have little more than jiggles.  Creativity seems non-existent.  Writing is lonely.  You just write.  Some say great writers sacrifice in blood.

Nott Memorial in Scanectady

There are no short-cuts to developing ideas for writing.  Ideas might come from something a friend says.  It didn't mean too much, at first.  Then, it grabs you.  Heffron gives me writing prompts.  There are websites available, as well.

Could the the Nott Memorial, built in 1815, on the campus of Union College in Scanectady be Bradbury's center for ideas?  It is truly stately but there is no "center for ideas." 

Writing requires tapping into memories, ideas, reflections, responses to what is happening all around.  Scanectady is where I locate subjects. Remarkable subjects come from the Holy Spirit.  Somebody you don't even know may need exactly what you are hearing. I learn to trust what I am hearing and write. 

a writer's notebook

Writers keep some kind of file for ideas.  I won't just magically remember.  I have a place now on my phone and Ipad to record ideas.  I also have a small spiral notepad. 

An extravagant spirit is filled with the Holy Spirit to to discover ways to enter into Scantectady places that seemed locked. Writers get back to writing.  As I write on one topic, other memories come to the surface.  

Full of forms, figures and shapes
Writing comes in multiple forms, figures, and shapes. In am listening to the flow and colors in the descriptive western writing of Zane Grey.  He paints word pictures with vivid colors in his settings.  We smell and feel life in 1916 western US. We are right there.

I don't see myself as creative. I fill up my life with other things which become diversions.  This isn't a guilt trip.  Sometimes, other things really need to be done. Writing requires getting buckled into a seat with a "keeping at it" spirit. There are more descriptive words and tightening the text to be attended to.  

Acute pleasure comes in many figures and shapes. Recently, a brother received an e-mail from a very gifted vocalist.  They participating in singing lessons together.  Their instructor encouraged her to participate in one of the national television singing contests. She could be very successful. 

My friend confirmed her amazing giftedness.  She takes pleasure in singing.  Using Shakespeare's analogy, the question is her sense of acute pleasure in using her singing gift.  She considers how and where will she use her gift. What or who motivates her to sing?  Why sing?

My friend pointed her to Paul, "And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him." 
~Colossians 3:17

She is fully engaged with her husband in their local church.  She is finding figures and shapes, all kinds of venues, to use the gift God gave her.  Many strongly encourage her to keep singing. Using God's gifts is dynamic. 

Our gifts come in many figures and shapes. We like things to be steady and sometimes they are.  Other times, we know all too well, are rocky with twisted turns.Some experiences getting a cars back on the road. There are places we don't expect and haven't planned for. The use of our gift helps us stay on His path for us.  


Apprehensions, motions and revolutions
Some writing digs deep into hard places. Apprehension is an anxiety or fear that something bad or unpleasant will happen. Some authors take readers to dysfunctional, hurting places. Apprehension believes there may be no exits of freeways of pain. 

The dock in life needs repair

Grief and sorrow are dark rooms. There are cycles of family strain, prodigal family members, painful job loss, conflict, and struggle. Sometimes, there are doesn't appear to be a happy ending.  Apprehensions are where many readers and writers live in daily experience. 

There are resolutions and reconciliations, new jobs, and relief.  Life is in motion.  Writers take us to those places, too. Kids grow up, start their journeys, and leave home.  Authors take us through the changes of life. 

The apprehensions, motions, and revolutions in best stories, like some of the parable of Jesus and chapters in our lives, have unfinished endings. We can write and live the endings.

Shakespeare's revolutions involved political and interpersonal conflict.  He writes about intrigue. Macbeth and Brutus are hard. He makes his characters real because we identify with their actions. We recognize his characters in people we see in our contemporary life experience.    

Thankful when pleasure is acute
We all have very important other things to do.  Obedient living requires balance.  We need to do needed and right things at home, in our churches, and wherever we are serving on a daily basis.  The pleasure is acute when we exercise right responsibility. Using our gift requires careful time management.  We are right to be passionate about loving God right through the roof.  We can rejoice to have many interests.  

Acute writing exercises here

Acute pleasure comes when we carefully work out scheduling time to write.  We could be doing so many other things.  If I want to be consistent with writing, I need to be acute.  When I am scheduled to write, I need to write at the appointed time.

Acute gifts whisper in our ears to invite us back.  The gift brings us to healing, good places for each of us.  We come back to the right pleasure. When it is this "good acute pleasure," we need and want to be there.  The gift brings us to peace and worth.  

Retreating doesn't resolve conflicts

"I get frustrated with all the talk around here, I've been spending most of my days by myself in my unit or watching TV," Jack admitted, recently.  Jack is an inmate at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent and we've met together regularly the ninth months he has been here.  

This retreating away from others is Jack's pattern.  He gets really hard on others all around him. We often discuss ways to get away from the stress with short time-outs racked back in his unit.  

As a Christian, he meets with several others for Bible reading and fellowship most days. In the process, he gets disrupted and stays away from the guys who really care about him for several days.  

Jack is writing out his testimony.  We talk about what the Lord has done and continues to do in his life.  Retreating from conflicts isn't solving his inner turmoil.

In balance, most of the men don't tell the chaplains everything that happens when they share about their conflicts in their units in the day rooms. The picture presented to us is most often warped. Once recently, the day officer who knows Jack well even confronted  Jack about staying away from the others. 

             Preparing for the Republic of the Congo in May

Before I share more about Jack, I am raising support, about 1/4 completed toward $3,500, and making plans for another PFC short-term missions trip to the Republic of the Congo beginning May 1 with Nate Bean and Greg and Rhonda Von Tobel.  I'll be overseeing finances with our Excel spreadsheet again and coordinating our airport travel details as part of my servant-leadership training.

We are planning three evangelistic prison services and two conferences to encourage those already serving in prisons and others wanting to get started.

This is the geographically smaller and more western on the two Congo nations in Africa, the other being the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  We will be flying into Brazzaville, on the southeast borde


                                                        
                               
                              Conflicts stir most days
It is common for conflicts to stir just below the surface most days--the reality of jail and prison life everywhere.  Often, it takes very little for these little things to erupt. The men stay in an open day room with circular tables and plastic chairs.  They can play cards and watch TV while they are out.  They can walk around and get exercise in the contained recreation area.  Guys talk about their lives outside the jail and often tell expanded stories about what is going on.  

The guys get frazzled around twisted attitudes and short tempers.  Some get frustrated enough to raise their voices, argue, and occasionally break into fights.  I remind the guys they are incarcerated.  Some purposefully look for ways to get under their fellow-inmates skin.  Others are manipulating controllers. If they can draw another man into their behaviors, they like it all the more--they think highly of getting others suckered in.

                                 Resolving conflicts
Jack and the other men know they struggle with conflicts.  It is a defeating cycle and for many of them, a pattern in their lives since boyhood. We read and carefully walk through key Bible passages with men about practical spiritual growth so their wives, children, and families recognize their transformation.  Some grow a great deal.  Others talk a good game.  Another group deeply cares and makes small but real incremental steps of growth.

Recently, I attended a Friday-Saturday regional seminar in Beaverton, Oregon about Biblical peacemaking--applying the gospel to conflicts of daily life through Peacemaker Ministries out of Billings, Montana with some new friends from the Maple Valley Presbyterian Church.

I read a book by Ken Sande around 20 years ago called, "The Peacemaker."  I've returned back several times as conflicts arose among my own family, our employment, and stir within our churches we attend.  While I served as a pastor in two small churches, we struggled very unsuccessfully with unresolved conflicts. Conflict is everywhere.

Over the years, I've gone to seminars that seemed so good while attending but when I returned the material didn't fit.  I thought it would all be so good.  While at this event, it was very clear I could start using the material, immediately. Starting this past week, I  actively tweak my presentations for the individuals I am sharing with.

                             Escape or attack modes    
Returning to Jack, in my inmate discussion, Peacemaker Ministries presentation notes we revert to escape or attack when we are confronted with a sticky conflict.  

I asked Jack and he didn't hesitate.  He retreats.  He runs away.  He hides within himself.  I asked what his wife would say.  He said, she would say I escape away from the family.  


The escaping person might go so far as to consider suicide.  Most often, they flee or live in a world of denial.  In some ways, this escape mode is every bit as aggressive.  The passive aggressive response is an assertive way to seek attention and manipulate others.  

The attacking person might consider murdering another person.  Yes, again, that is far out. They will verbal assault or accusation. Their legal action is litigation.  

The purpose is to move further inside the peacemaker responses.  the peaceful person overlooks an offense toward reconciliation.  Negotiation with compromise and win-win between the parties is the goal.  Mediation with a third party to facilitate compromise may be required.  We want to draw as close to win-win, as possible.  If needed, we agree to a mediated resolution so we can move ahead productively.

In order to resolve conflict, it seems so basic to note both parties need to be willing to participate.  We know, sometimes circumstances are so strained communication and participation becomes very hard. 

How do you respond to unresolved conflict or when you don't get your way?  Do you escape or attack? Where are you at on the diagram?