Douglas Young

Read my guest post for Chris Gallagher at The Preacher’s Pen.

Chris is a gifted minister for whom I have great appreciation. Thanks for the invitation, my friend!

A simple conversation one evening generated something that still leaves me in awe. It was the evening before Thanksgiving 2009. Family had gathered at my sister’s house in Beeville, TX. Someone, I think it was my niece, Courtney, asked a question about love. Not the generic, common love that pervades the world. Not the kind of love expressed on a wedding day that shed after the honeymoon. She was inquiring about something deeper, something more profound, something enduring.

Now I’m no expert on this subject.  I wasn’t taught this when I was younger. Principles were later taught to me, but rarely, if ever, had I seen then born out in life. Love was something of a mystery, maybe, something more akin to what could be found in a Utopian world. But here? Not so much.

I’m fairly convinced that I didn’t come to understand love until I came to understand God. After all, God is love (1 John 4:8). I’m certain he’s the one who’s taught me most about it. He’s the one who’s shown it most definitively.

My own love is shallow and self-centered. My own love has limits. Cross me and most people have found it out. I think that’s why I evaded the subject for so long. But when God is convinced you are ready, he will bring you to your knees to show you that your love isn’t good enough, but His love is.

So back to Thanksgiving 2009… I addressed the question very delicately. My family knows altogether too well my shortcomings. My wife knows altogether too well my failings. So I wasn’t about to bust in there like someone who had the market on this subject, but I gingerly began to express what I’d come to know about AGAPE. AGAPE is Greek for the highest form of love there is.

Our English word love is so general. The Greeks, though, they divided up their concepts of love into various forms. AGAPE, without question, is the strongest form. It is the love that would cause God to take human form and offer himself a ransom for all (John 3:16). AGAPE is other-oriented. AGAPE isn’t about what I can get, its about what I can give.

I also elaborated on the other forms of love, but they weren’t the focus. They were simply incidental so as to set apart AGAPE. Now, though, when I mention “AGAPE” or when my wife and/or sisters utter the word, we all begin to think the same thing. My sister, Jennie, seems to drop it wherever she goes. It’s become a code word for us. No, it’s become even more than that. It is as if God wants us to see that he’s placed it in places we’ve forgotten about, and then wants us to leave it behind wherever we go.

AGAPE gives me chills. It, at times, warms. But it always creates fascination.

More to come later. In fact, I’ll share with you what happened on Thanksgiving Day of 2009 that changed the course of everything that holiday!

I hadn’t felt like I’d traveled backwards in time, and spent moments with someone I didn’t know, like this since I read Donald Miller’s, Blue Like Jazz. I’m serious. No hyperbole here. Sarah Cunningham’s, Picking Dandelions: A Search for Eden Among Life’s Weeds did that for me.

Do you know the feeling of seeing something you know you shouldn’t have? Remember catching mom wrapping Christmas presents and then stashing them away? You saw something you shouldn’t have, but seeing it opened you up to things as they really were. That’s the feeling I’ve derived after reading Picking Dandelion’s. She led me into her world- a world I should not and would not have seen otherwise- to find the truth behind the story that’s been hidden behind the veil for quite some time.

One can’t help but look at the world around him and think: “Something’s not right about all of this.” And one would be right. Things simply aren’t as they ought to be. And yet we pant and search and claw and pursue the thing to make it all right. Often, we are searching for the right thing in all the wrong places.

Part I begins with Sarah’s childhood. I was drawn into her experiences, seeing them open up, unfold and eventually shut. It makes you wonder if the Christianity we teach our children is something that will endure for the long haul. Are there too many holes? Too many voids? Could we be setting them up for major disappointment?

Looking back with the benefit of hindsight, I really wish I couldn’t empathize with her, but I do, and altogether too often at that. Where we are different is that she began picking up on much of it early on. As one who sat in on church business meetings at age 10, she took note of the things that were out of sorts. See saw the good, the bad, and the ugly. Gotta love this line: “It was clear, even to ten-year-old me, that a non-brown shingle would never be allowed to touch the church roof. If it came down to it, elderly men would lie down in front of bulldozers and choir women would chain themselves to the eaves.” This is so typical, but the last sentence of the chapter says it all. After the votes were taken and brown shingles “won by a landslide…we breathed a sigh of relief. Once again we’d narrowly escaped change.”

Part II takes us from adolescence to teenage Sarah. These days offered her new challenges. As most of us can somehow relate, it is the teenage years that cause us to begin to see ourselves in light of how others see us. It constitutes the beginning of a devilish trap that is immensely difficult to escape. And some never do. Identities are being formed and good direction always seems lacking.

Part III takes us into Sarah’s college years, where nothing is easy. But Sarah seemed to see and experience things that created unrest and discontent, but it really didn’t take her in the direction it took some of us. It seemed to do the opposite. Mission trips afforded her opportunities to see what she hadn’t before. I love the last paragraph of Chapter 2. A trip to Chicago left this impression upon her,

The thing that nagged my soul was knowing that some days the warming shelter was too full and we had to turn people away. The people would nod unsurprisingly when we told them to come back later, and they would shuffle away, down the snow-covered road and past the colossal empty churches that ten people attended once a week on Sundays when they made their weekly drive into the city from the suburbs.

More experiences, and eventually marriage, would make for more personal transition. One thing, though, was certain… she was forced to adjust. And that isn’t always easy.

Part IV introduces how the events of 9/11 changed so many things for so many people. Like many of us, one couldn’t help but wonder where God was in the midst of it all.

Part V begins with how a scoliosis prognosis would affect her, but the physical issues she experienced were simply a means for her to begin speaking to spiritual ailments that were really in view. These ailments had only one solution…Confession. Her confession? It was simple…”I hate. I hate, I hate, I hate.”

The remaining parts (VI-IX) are startling realizations about faith and how change happens in one’s life. Her testimony is as compelling a testimony there is, outside of Scripture itself. She lays it out there with potent transparency. Her flaws were many and all needed to be addressed. And she addresses them.

This is God’s great reconciliation project, and all who are willing may participate. It’s not the funnest project in the world, by any means. But in Christ Jesus, God is reconciling the world back to himself (2 Corinthians 5:19). He is in passionate pursuit of us, God help us that we are equally as passionate in our pursuit of Him.

This, I believe, is to a large extent the gist of Picking Dandelions. Things simply aren’t always as they seem. People, well-intentioned people, did what they believed to be right in expressing to my generation how things are and how they ought to be. But being well-intentioned doesn’t make it right. The voids that were left in many of us were in need of being filled, and they would be or will be, in due time. And so we search. We search for Eden among life’s weeds.

The weeds are plenteous, but God sees us through them and we can find Him in their midst. He sees us in our pursuit of Him and he reveals the beauties of what was lost at the fall (Genesis 3) by giving us tastes of His grace. And grace is always sufficient (2 Corinthians 12:9). It keeps us sifting and searching for the real things that matter most.

Thank you, Sarah, for a great book and for letting me be a part of this. But before I close, Sarah has requested my Top 3 recommendations for a “Best of the Best” book list. My three are:

1. The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard
2. The Jesus Way: A Conversation in the Way that Jesus is the Way by Eugene Peterson
3. Primal: A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity by Mark Batterson

…is something you take for granted until you start losing it. Another lesson I’m learning here at the New Mexico Christian Children’s Home is that time is precious. It flies by like dust through Eastern New Mexico and the Texas Panhandle.

We are adjusting well to our new surroundings and new labors. We are working now with our second group of kids and we are loving it. We are tired from a trip to Ruidoso, NM, though. We, and a number of other cottage parents, took the kids to Mountain Family Fellowship. It was an amazing weekend.

School is still incredibly demanding. They make for late nights and early mornings.

I’m trying to finish writing a review of Sarah Cunningham’s Picking Dandelions: A Search for Eden Among Life’s Weeds. She’s got a blog tour going. My post goes live on July 15th.

Also got invites from Chris Gallagher and Bobby Cohoon to guest post for their blogs, later this month. I’m excited about it.

I’ve been working on a post entitled, AGAPE, that I can’t seem to finish. That is frustrating. My family is waiting. Please be patient. It is coming soon. Just gotta find more time. LOL

Time is precious. Remember that. Love your wife. Hug your kids. Appreciate your family. Engage your work with passion. Don’t take your time for granted.

It happened almost overnight. Two days ago, Tisha and I went from having three children under our roof to 12. The oldest is 13; the youngest is 18 months. They will stay with us for a week, then a new set of kids will spend the week with us. When House Parents have their week off, we take their kids for them for that week. That’s how it works.

As I type, we have had them for 48 hours. Two days down, five more to go with the kids from Cottage 1.

So what have I learned in those 48 hours? Here are a few things.

1. Kids are desperately seeking validation. These children know there are voids in their lives and they are seeking people to fill those voids. That is what makes this kind of work so rewarding. Adults are filling holes in the hearts of kids and filling them will love, concern, and hope.
2. Patience. I told Tisha the other night, “It will be impossible to strive to be so patient with these kids and that not spill over into becoming more patient with our own kids.” It’s true. I’ve had such unreasonable expectations of my own kids. Patience hasn’t been one of my virtues, and I am certain that God has brought us to this place, not only to help make a difference in the lives of these kids, but to also teach me to be a more patient person. This is something I welcome.
3. Kids want to be engaged on so many levels. Wednesday afternoon I took our whole cottage of 12 kids (mine included) and we had a huge soccer game. Kids from other cottages played as well. It was a blast. But it wasn’t for all of them. Some children had to be engaged on a different level and in a different venue. It’s easy to want to compel kids to conform to things that simply aren’t who they are. Every child is unique and must be considered as such. We are going to have to learn each one and seek to engage them where they desire it.

I am sure that there will be tons more we learn. For those of you who’ve been wondering what children’s home work is like, this is just a taste. More shall come later, but I am going to have to find the time. Time, consequently, is a precious commodity around here.

He had a bodybuilder’s physique, tattoos that covered the entirety of his massive arms, and a shiny, shaved head. By all appearances, he might not be the kind of person you’d think would get it. But he did. That’s what we get for thinking in terms of common stereotypes.

I’m sure, for some of us, his job description might not help. After all, he cleaned carpets for a living. He might have been the owner for all I know. That’s inconsequential. What matters is that he got it.

He was cleaning my carpets in conjunction with my residential lease agreement. There were several companies to choose from; I made the call; he came.

He, though, asked the question: “Why are you moving?” Here’s how the conversation went.

“New job,” I responded.

“Military?”, he inquired.

“Nope… I’m in ministry.”

“What kind of ministry?” he probed.

“Well I was a pulpit minister, but now my wife and I are going to work with a children’s home in Portales.”

He developed a look on his face that said it all. He smiled with a particular look on his face, shook his head, and we continued to converse about which home we were working with. But as we parted company, I couldn’t help but think to myself…that guy got it. He really got it.

My decision to give up pulpit work for something else hasn’t been well received by all. There are not few who believe that pulpit work is about the only to do ministry. I use to think that myself.

I knew there were a variety of spiritual gifts one might use, and they weren’t necessarily connected to a preaching ministry (Romans 12: 6-8), but I still thought pulpit work was the only legitimate way to serve. Youth Ministers were a waste of money. Family Life Ministers were silliness. Both might be “unauthorized.” Looking back, I wound up being the one with the silly thinking.

Real ministry happens when service takes place in the name of God. It might be at a church building, a homeless shelter, and/or a children’s home. Scratch that…I’m now 100% certain that it happens at a children’s home. It is odd, though, to see who really gets it.

Where do I start?

The last week has been one of the more interesting weeks of my life and I think this week will probably wind up topping it in the “interesting” catagory. We’ve been doing a lot of staffing at NMCCH, learning more about the kids who live here and observing how other houseparents operate their cottages.

We finally got completely moved from Clovis, as well as got everything from the apartment on campus here over to Cottage 3, where we’ll be living.

Yesterday, I went back to Clovis to preach for my friend, Larry Tittle, at the West 21st Street Church of Christ. Later we came back to Portales so I could teach the teen class at Southside on Sunday evening. I’ll be preaching for Southside this Sunday.

Tonight I am going back to Clovis to play softball and working with a couple for whom I will be officiating their wedding ceremony soon.

Tuesday we have another big staffing before we begin keeping the kids from Cottage 1, the largest cottage on campus with the most the youngest kids, Wednesday morning. We are very anxious!

Our kids are loving it here. We are meeting and working with some wonderful people.

Today, I  also begin a new class in my MACCR program entitled, “Identity, Culture, and Conflict.” Can’t wait to see what this class entails.

Things have been crazy, but I think they are about to get crazier!

In the field of dispute resolution, we refer to it as framing. Framing is analyzing something by noting everything we can about it. Our understandings of things tend to be based on the frames through which we see them. We call it a “frame of reference.”

And then there is what is called reframing. To reframe something is to see something from a different angle or perspective and then communicate it in that way. Reframing allows us to see things we might not otherwise see.

It is safe to say that perspective is everything.

People, myself included, have tended to look at Christianity in a myriad of different ways. Their thoughts are predicated upon how they’ve framed it. But I’ve noticed I have not always been very comfortable with how others have framed it.

Is Christianity about relationship or rule keeping or both? How you’ve framed it makes all the difference.

In the below YouTube clip, Jason Gray has framed Christianity in a way that may or may not make you uncomfortable. I think I understand what he’s getting at, though. How do you feel about it?

We gravitate towards different things for different reasons. One of the reasons I’m pursuing a degree in Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation is that I am tired of not effectively handling conflict. My desire for peace has thrust me into something through which God can use me to make a difference.

Brad Palmore recently completed the MACRR program and was instrumental in convincing me to pursue it, as well. Brad has begun a series of blog posts that deal with Church Systems. His insights are deep and will test you, but it has been worth it so far. I can’t wait to see where he goes. But if you yearn to better understand Church Systems- how they operate, why they operate the way they do, and why things have developed the way they have- then I think you need to subscribe to his blog. Here is a link to his first post in this series.

Reese, Aby & Haylee

Our kids spent a week away from us with Tisha’s parents, but now we are reunited. It was only a week, but it seemed like forever. They’ve spent a week away from us before, but for some reason this time it was different. They were safe and with people they love, but the distance between us and them still creates a feeling of despair.

I suppose this is what it feels like when He is separated from his children. He must yearn to be close to them. He must think about them all the time.

When we landed at Houston Hobby on Thursday, Tisha’s dad brought Haylee and Aby to pick us up at the airport. Tisha and I were both greeted with as big a hugs as our girls could offer. Those are moments I shall never forget.

The kids, especially Haylee and Reese, have been particularly clingy the last few days. I don’t mind it at all. I suspect, to a certain degree, that’s the way it ought to be. Isn’t that what God wants from us?