Loaves and soup...and salad?

          

On Thursday, February 10, 2011 Panera Bread on 15th and Bryant in Spring Creek Shopping Center will donate 10% of their sales to Cross and Crown Mission.  So, between 5:00 and 8:00 pm grab you a couple sandwiches, some soup or a salad and, like, 25 cookies knowing that a portion of your purchase goes directly to Cross and Crown!  See you there!

Long time no C

Now...

...and then.

"C", as in, Cory.

We haven't seen this kid, now young man, in close to 3 or 4 years.  Last time we saw him was when he and his family still lived across the street and a few doors down from Cross and Crown.

A lot has changed since the last time we saw Cory, both physically and maturity wise.

He has matured from the pesky, undersized, skate boarding, problem child we once knew to a nice looking, mild mannered, respectful, still skate boarding, young man.

Cory now lives in Missouri with the rest of his family but made it back to OKC for a couple weeks to spend some time with his long distance best friend who still lives in the neighborhood.

Cory initially planned to spend a couple weeks in the city over Christmas break but after a significant miscommunication between he and some of his extended family has been stranded here in the city.

Because Cory had some extra time on his hands while in the neighborhood we were privileged to visit with him several times.  We talked about future goals, school (and how missing 2 weeks of school or more could definitely affect those goals), family and decision making.

There are two major realizations/confirmations I walked away with during our extended time with Cory.

First, I am genuinely optimistic for Cory.  Even though Cory has a lot stacked against him and has some tough circumstances; he seems to be rising above those circumstances and staying, for the most part, on a straight path.

Second, after talking with Cory about both past and present we both laughed when we verbally confirmed that Cory is the only individual that I have baptized both spiritually and toilet-ually.

It's a long story, but, basically, back in the day Cory got a little carried away one day at Rock Island and when he got upset he ended up throwing nacho cheese all over Rock Island.  Whenever I confronted him to clean it up he then responded by throwing the nacho cheese on me while cursedly refusing to clean up the rest.  I then did what any good, Christ-like mentor, parental or fatherly figure would do and physically grabbed him and dumped his head and face in the toilet.

The old is gone and the new has come, right?  Not exactly how it worked.  But, if I remember correctly, he did clean up the nacho cheese after he dried his head off...

Anyways, Cory informed us this past Sunday that he had worked out a plan with his aunt who lives nearby to get him back home to Mizzouri.

So, until next time, Cory, we pray the best for you and anxiously await the next time you return to the neighborhood.  We love you and God bless.

Now...

...and then.

Tis The Season

There has been lots of activity at Cross and Crown during this Christmas season and if you're interested in being apart of all or some of what's left then here is how you can help...

1.  Sunday Worship

       This Sunday (December 12) we will be having our Christmas celebration.  It starts at 6:00 with our meal followed by a time of worship at 6:30.  Then, around 7:15 or so, following the worship, we will wrap up the night by giving away warm jackets/coats, beanies/toboggans, gloves, scarves and blankets to each family member or individual.

   During this time we will, also, be keeping our eyes open for families with younger children to select a toy or present from a small selection of gifts that we have collected throughout the past year.

2.  Food Pantry/Clothing Room

       As usual, the food pantry and clothing room will be open Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to the neighborhood and we are always excited to have some new volunteers helping and praying for the people that come with need for the day.

3.  Rock Island

       Historically, during the Christmas season Rock Island has done something memorable with and for the most consistent, regular attendees during the previous school semester.  This year we're planning on the same.

       In years past we have done gift exchanges (Dirty Santa), delivered gifts to families of Rock Island students and even had the old, traditional 'Christmas Party' with punch and cookies but this year we want to do something that we have, somewhat, gotten away from at Rock Island.

       We want to get them out of their normal, comfortable setting of their neighborhood and experience, for some the first time, another part of Oklahoma City.  It may seem, kinda, silly or insignificant to you or someone else reading this but what we have learned is anytime we can get the kids out of their routine, everyday environment we are able to see a whole different side of some of the kids.

       This year we are teaming up with a small group of youth from a church in another part of the city for dinner and a movie.  It's a youth group 'date', of sorts.

       The plan is simple.  Meet up with the other group.  Go eat dinner.  Talk.  Laugh.  Go to the movie.  Throw popcorn.  Get reprimanded.  Laugh.  Get a few phone numbers during the movie.  Talk some more.  Head back to Rock Island.  Don't put on a seat-belt.  Get reprimanded.  Put on a seat-belt.  Get back to Rock Island.  Merry Christmas.

       This year, instead of gifts, we want to give the kids an experience.  A memory.  We want to give them an opportunity to meet new people in a new environment.  To strengthen friendships.

Recap

       So there is how you can be apart of what's going on at Cross and Crown and Rock Island these last couple days and weeks before Christmas comes and goes.

       Here's how you can serve:

1. Sunday night - Help serve food, pass out jackets, coats, mittens and scarves.  Shop the gift area with kids and families.  Help clean up.
2. Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday - Help in the prayer room by meeting and praying for families and individuals.  Carrying food boxes for women or the elderly.  

       Here's what you can bring/give:

1. Jackets/coats, toboggans, gloves, scarfs and blankets.
2. Small gifts/toys for children on Sunday night.
3. Financial gifts towards the Rock Island dinner and movie.  (We may be eating at McDonald's depending on what kind of money we can pull in before next Wednesday)

If interested in helping or contributing in any way please email me at lwhitmire1@gmail.com or just show up! 

love thy neighbor

I love my job.

Often times, when someone inquires about my job or what I do at my job, I express how much I enjoy doing what I do and how I am thankful to be in the position that I am but, also, how I wish my job didn't have to exist.

Without getting too much into the whole discussion of the role of the church and/or the Christian duty, I will offer a suggestion which is that if the church, Christians, body of believers or whatever you want to call Christ followers really stepped up to the plate and fulfilled their total calling then places like Cross and Crown and other ministries, para-churches, shelters, food pantries ect. wouldn't be necessary.  But, in the meantime, I'm happy to be where I am.

One of my favorite experiences as a full-time, staff member at Cross and Crown is getting to observe people and relationships that develop between volunteers, staff members and those who come with some sort of need.

A recent encounter I was able to observe took me a while to completely process.  The encounter was between a Hispanic women, Sequroh, who works in the clothing room at Cross and Crown on a daily basis and a homeless, African-American, schizophrenic man, Michael, who sleeps across the street from Cross and Crown.

Over the last couple of years Michael has been in and around Cross and Crown for several different reasons.  Food, clothing, getting his laundry done, helping out around the mission by sweeping, carrying boxes and unloading food truck deliveries, Michael has done it all.  Over the course of this time he has developed several significant relationships and, undoubtedly, left lasting impressions on others.

Naturally, because of his frequent visits and Sequroh's consistent presence in the clothing room, the two of them have built a friendship.  A very unique, friendship.

A couple Sunday nights back, following our meal and worship, everyone wrapped up their duties and conversations and headed out the doors.  This was the Sunday night that the temperature dropped significantly following several days of warm weather.  As I headed out the door and began walking down the street towards my car I noticed another car that was slowly approaching me.  It was dark outside and so I was unable to identify the car until it pulled up across the street from me, directly across from Cross and Crown.

"Crap."  I thought to myself as my mind started revisiting all the movie scenes where the car drives up real slow and then everyone hits the pavement.  "This could be bad."

Much to my delight, the car belonged to Sequroh.  After staring at the car for a brief moment the window rolled down.

"Where is Michael?"- Sequroh asked.

"Huh?" - I replied.  I wasn't completely sure who she was talking about.

"Michael.  Where is Michael?  It is very cold." - She said as she held up a large blanket.

"Oooooh.  He should be under the stairs." - I told her once I realized who she was talking about.

Once I figured out that she was bringing a blanket for Michael because of the cold weather I jogged over to her car and repeated where I thought Michael might be.

She jumped out of her car, walked into the dark, quiet brush and repeatedly questioned, "Michael? Michael? Michael?"

Finally, following Sequroh's multiple attempts to find Michael, Michael woke up from a nap, of sorts, and acknowledged Sequroh.  Sequroh quickly handed the blanket to Michael and in her broken English said,
'
"Michael, here is a blanket.  It is cold.  Here."

Michael took the blanket and Sequroh hustled to her car without any further conversation.

Sequroh and I exchanged good-byes and went our separate ways.

The rest of the night I couldn't help but smile and laugh to myself as I considered the irony of the whole occurrence.  The norms that had been crushed.  The social boundaries that had been crossed.

One one hand you have Sequroh.  The small, Spanish speaking, Mexican-American women who, because of her origin of birth, is deemed an 'alien' in the place she has called home the majority of her life.

On the other hand you have Michael.  A much taller, African-American, former college football quarterback, schizophrenic man who is labeled and treated as an 'alien' by most because he has no place to call home ( sound familiar? not bad company if I do say so myself).

What a perfect combination, right?

So, there are the two characters of the story.  One lives in a house up the street from Cross and Crown and the other lives across the street without a home.  Technically, they're neighbors.  Without a doubt they're more neighor'ish than I am with my actual, physical, across the street and right next door, neighbors.

Whether or not Sequroh consciously thought about Jesus' command to "love your neighbor" doesn't really matter.  She did it.  She's doing it.

She didn't broadcast it over the internet.  She didn't put up flyers.  She didn't wait until she could round up some friends so that they would think highly of her good deed.  She didn't have to have a committee discuss, vote and start up a ministry all in order to get up at night in the cold and drive down the street to give a homeless friend a blanket.  She just did it.

She gets its.

That's why I love my job.

What's so funny?

We take Christianity too serious.

Naturally, because 'church', as most of us know it, requires us to sit in a chair or pew for an extended amount of time, be quiet, listen to a person stand up front and speak, keep our hands to ourselves, sing whenever we are instructed to and pray with our eyes closed and hands crossed, we view Christianity as, somewhat of, a gentlemen's religion.  

If you have ever attended a church service were an individual didn't follow the list of do's and don'ts, aka the norm, it was probably very apparent.  You know, like when you invited the kid to church when you were younger and during the prayer he tries to trade pogs with you or blurts out during the initial silence at the beginning of a prayer, "Geeez, this silence is really awkward.  I wonder if your parents will take us to Chucky Cheese for lunch."

If we're not careful, that's all Christianity becomes.  

A habit.

A predictable, dry, uneventful habit.  

The good news is that Christianity is more than what I just described.  If you really buy in to the whole 'personal relationship' with God offer then you know that Christianity is anything but a dry, uneventful experience.  How crazy of a thought it is to consider that the God of creation, the one who created you, me and everything that we know desires to know us in a personal way.  

The main reason I am addressing the reality that Christianity is often taken or viewed as a very straight-forward, no fun, follow the rules experience is because I don't think this idea reflects accurately on our God.  

Now, don't get me wrong.  Silence out of respect, following rules, honoring God by doing what is right  or bowing your head out of reverence are all good things.  My point is that if this is all your know and what you deem as Christianity, you are missing something.

 If Jesus/God is at the center of Christianity and Christianity is, as I described earlier, predictable, dry and uneventful then doesn't that make Jesus/God the same?

I strongly disagree.

Here's an example...

Two weeks ago the staff, volunteers and 40 some odd spanish Bible study students surprised Martha, a Cross and Crown board member and active, daily worker, for her birthday.  The students were all circled up studying the good news as the rest of us charged in with a couple birthday cakes singing happy birthday.

After getting over her initial shock Martha finally calmed down long enough to say thank you, while chocking back tears.  If you know Martha then you know that she takes any and every opportunity to turn the praise and honor back to God.  Someone drops some cake on the ground? "Hey, thank you God for giving us paper towels and water to clean it up with."  Someone breaks in to her house and steals her tv? Eeeh, no biggie.  "Thank you, God, for at least giving me a home for someone to break in to.  You get the idea."

So, Martha talked for a few minutes about how thankful she was to God for allowing her the opportunity to come to the neighborhood that Cross and Crown is located in and how the people of the neighborhood had allowed her to be family with them.

Next, several women from the neighborhood, mostly in spanish, stood up and expressed to Martha how thankful they were for her in their class, in the baby room at Cross and Crown and just her overall, general presence at the mission.

After everyone had been given an opportunity to express their thanks to and for Martha a women named Mary stood up.  Mary walked over to Martha, grabbed her behind her head with one of her hands and looked directly at her.  Martha did likewise and the two stood, nearly, face to face.  Side note: Mary recently had a stroke and just recently began to walk again.  She, also, has paralysis on one side of her body.  So, the fact that she is even able to stand up, walk and place her hand on Martha is significant in itself.  


What happens next is the part that made Ron and I stop and snicker to ourselves.  


So, here we have Mary and Martha...


They are standing in the center of the room together, holding each other and Mary begins signing to Martha a song in spanish about how thankful she is for her.


Next, after she finishes signing she mentions that she has a gift for Martha.  Mary reaches into her purse and pulls out some perfume...


Mary gives perfume to Martha... 

^"1 Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. ² Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. ³ Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume." - John 12:1-8

As the scenario unfolded right before us I turned around to look at Ron as he was leaning over towards me and he said, "What's she going to do next? Pour the perfume all over Martha's head?"


We laughed because we both were thinking the same thing.  We were both thinking about the story I mentioned above.  


Predictable, dry, uneventful God?  I don't think so.


My God is pretty stinkin' funny.

Give us this day our daily bread...or cake...or crackers.

I don't remember Ron and I making a conscious decision to involve food in a more direct way during the Rock Island after school 'gatherings' but, somehow, it happened.  The last two or three weeks, for whatever reason, food has been the source of lots of laughter and enjoyment.  

For example, video 1 was a contest we decided to institute in order to get rid of some birthday cakes that were so generously donated to us at Cross and Crown.  We only had a few and so we cut one up so everyone could have a slice but then decided to distribute the other two cakes to the the two kids who won the contest.  The contest was pretty simple.  Whoever could eat their piece of cake the fastest without using their hands wins.  Simple enough.  Enjoy...

The next several videos document several of the kids failed attempts to eat 6 crackers within 60 seconds. Key word, FAILED.  Not one of them could conquer the challenge but don't be so quick to judge.  I bet you can't either!

Here's my favorite video.  Check out the panic in his face and borderline cracker explosion that nearly occurrs only seconds in to the challenge.  Needless to say, FAILED!

And, here are the rest of the FAILED attempts.  In this one Junior decides he would rather have 60 seconds instead of 1 minute...hmmm

and the follow up...

and finally the "bow out"...

Get ready for next weeks challenge = "Eat as many expired corn-dogs in 30 minutes as you can!"

Post Chi-Town Observations

A couple weeks back the staff attended the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA) conference.  Every year a new city hosts the 3-4 day event and this year Chicago was the location.  This was my third time to attend the CCDA conference and it was much different than the first two.  


The conference's mission is 'to inspire, train, and connect Christians who seek to bear witness to the Kingdom of God by reclaiming and restoring under-resourced communities.'  In other words, they have classes, workshops, speakers and on-site ministry experiences that each of us are exposed to in order to encourage new ideas, build up and strengthen existing ministries, present examples and further utilize the blessings of "stuff" that we have in a manner that is pleasing to God.


This years conference differed from previous years, in that, the majority of the classes and workshops weren't all within the 4 walls of the hotel.  Most of the classes were throughout the city of Chicago at different ministries, churches and parachurches. Because most of the classes were spread out all over Chicago if gave us each opportunities to experience the business and 'big city life' of a city that is much different than Oklahoma City, Dallas or any other larger city in the south that I have lived in or visited.  


Here are my observations of Chicago and what I walked away dreaming about for Cross and Crown/Rock Island...


1.  Chicago is very diverse.  If you know me you know that I grew up in an all white community.  In high school I went to an all white school and had all white friends, with the exception of a few (what up Lays and Mike if you ever read this!).  But, growing up my brother and I played a sport that is predominantly saturated with African-American players.  In high school we each had two black teammates and so we thought our team was 'diverse'.  Several years later once we were in college playing basketball something incredible happened...my brother and I became the minority!  10 black guys, 4 white guys and 3 hispanics!?!?!  We were such world changers! - Wrong.


       My time in Chicago helped me add to my ever evolving idea of what it means to be diverse.  I used to think having a black or hispanic kid at school meant we were a 'multi-cultural' school.  No.  Then, I thought once I was the minority in a specific setting I had truely arrived at understanding and being accepting of other races.  Still no. Even working everyday in an urban setting that has each and every race and color I still haven't come to really understand what it means to be "racism free".  I still have my undeserving generalizations.  


       Walking Chicago's streets made me picture heaven.  It wasn't because of the cleanliness, the golden slated streets and definitely not the smell.  It was because all the people walking the streets were so different.  You know the song, "Red and yellow, black and white...they are precious...", you know it.  It made me think of what heaven will be like when people from every tribe, language and nation will bow to the name that is above every name and confess “Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.”


2.  We, meaning the Cross and Crown staff, need to do a better job of giving volunteers more ownership of the things that occur on a day to day basis at Cross and Crown and Rock Island.    Lots, probably most, of the 'ministries' that Cross and Crown has to offer the neighborhood are each set up in a way that a minimal, consistent commitment would be sufficient.  The same goes for Rock Island.  


       In the past I have always allowed the volunteer to determine their own level of ownership in what goes on at Cross and Crown or Rock Island.  My personal thought process is that if someone wants to get involved... they will.  I don't need to force anything on them and, honestly, I don't want to force anything on someone because the potential of them not following through is very likely.  Especially with the kids that come to Rock Island, the last thing they need is another person to show up for a few days/weeks and then disappear never to show up again.  


       With this being said, I still haven't figured out the perfect balance of not forcing something on someone but also allowing someone the freedom and opportunity to have personal ownership in the daily, weekly and yearly happenings that God has allowed us to be apart of at Cross and Crown.  


3.  I want a gym.  Shocking, right?  We've been talking about it for couple years now but after visiting a local neighborhood ministry in Chicago I really have the bug.  They have a basketball gym, a fitness/workout facility and a medical clinic all in one.  But, I mean, I'm agreeable.  I would be happy with just the basketball gym and some extra space to put some of our current fitness equipment in.  


       Just think....we could have youth basketball teams with coaches and players from the neighborhood, as well as, teams from outside the neighborhood to help support the financial needs of maintaining the gym.  Have people that are into arts and dancing teaching kids from the neighborhood.  Have practices, fitness classes.....sheeeeesh.  You get the idea.  If it's in Gods' plan, it will happen.  (I just hope that it is and that it is within the near future.)


       So, there are a few of the top ideas/thoughts I walked away with this year at CCDA.  I realize that my first point was more of just a self-realization but if the second point I made interests you and you want to get more plugged in and have some of that 'ownership' I was talking about; let me know.


       Or, if my third point/idea interests you and you want to build us a gym that would be cool too. No biggie :)


lwhitmire1@gmail.com


Oh, I figured I would throw this picture in of myself, pops, bro and bro-in-law fishing a couple weeks back in Colorado.  I realize it has nothing to do with my blog post but I always enjoy reading people's blogs that have pics.  I figured everyone else would too....maybe not.