Archive for the ‘Freedom’ category
June 10, 2013
WORDS FROM W.W. June 9, 2013
Resting is something that not many of us do well. We live at such a hyper-pace that resting seems weird. It seems…useless!
For example, I hear so many commercials for a drink called “Five Hour Energy”. The essence of the commercials seem to be about a man who has trouble waking up in the morning, or runs low on energy in the afternoon, and he drinks a 1.93 ounce bottle of Five Hour Energy. Rest is chased away.
It could be just if you are tired…you just might need to rest!
Starbucks has made a mint off of people who can’t rest.
God knew what he was doing when he called for a Sabbath rest. He knew what he was doing when he commanded his people to observe a “Sabbath Year” (Leviticus 25:1-7) to give the fields and vineyards a year of rest.
When we don’t rest we’re prone to error- error in judgment, error in actions, error in the things we say and the temptations we’re vulnerable to fall to. And our lives are so hectic that even when we do slow down we have a hard time resting. Three or four years ago I took a one month study leave. I found that it took me the first two weeks to get out of work mode in order to slow down to meditate, pray, and study. As I sat on a couch reading my mind kept thinking of things that suddenly seemed urgent…like checking to make sure all the windows were closed and whether the oven got turned off. I had a very difficult time just slowing down.
Oddly enough, one of the reasons I’m trying to write a blog post each day for thirty days is because it makes me sit down and focus.
This week take a walk that has no purpose to it except walking and praying.
Sit down in your living room and leave the remote control where it is. Don’t touch it. Just sit for a few minutes.
Sit on your front porch, or back deck, or even in the front yard and just watch and listen.
Take the Bible and read one of the psalms…and then read it again…and then read it again. Slowly, meditatively, allowing God to make certain words stand out.
Go to bed early and read a book. Not a murder mystery, but a biography or something like Lake Wobegon Days.
Eat dinner at a snail’s pace. Make sure there is a couple of nights this week where the calendar is free in the evening, and eat a slow dinner together with your family.
It’s Sunday evening and I’m ready for bed at 7:11. It’s been a work-filled day. My Sabbath usually comes on Monday.
Lord, give me some rest…and let my weary body be renewed.
Categories: Christianity, Community, Freedom, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: caffeine, Five Hour Energy, Lake Wobegon Days, rest, Sabbath rest, Sabbath Year, walk
Comments: Be the first to comment
June 8, 2013
WORDS FROM W.W. June 8, 2013
“The Far Side of Church”
I love laughter, and I love “The Far Side” comic strip. It was a sad day when Gary Larson stopped doing “The Far Side.” Thankfully, my brother had given me “The Far Side Calendar” every year for Christmas for five or six years. When I get depressed or frustrated I take a look at a few of the calendar pages.
I wish I could blame my warped sense of humor on “The Far Side”, but that would be a lie. It was in my genes long before I started looking at funny-faced kids and adults wearing spectacles. And, as a result of that, I think of situations that might occur in church that I think would be funny. Others might not think they are even worth a giggle, but I’m ready to explode.
Like the Sunday several years ago when I asked a dear elderly lady named Pauline Jones to light the advent candle and I gave her a book of matches that had no matches in it. To further the humor I then gave her a second book of matches…that was also matchless!
I think of church pranks, like when I spoke at Ascension Lutheran Church down the street from us on pulpit exchange Sunday and they gave me a bulletin that had the pages mixed up. Page three ended with us singing “Crown Him With Many Crowns”, and then page four…in my bulletin had the second verse of “Spirit of the Living God.”
I can imagine a Far Side entitled “Deacon Pranks” with a picture of a deacon putting Super Glue on the bottom lip of a communion plate, or substituting prune juice for grape juice.
I can picture a wolf dressed up in a suit, wearing a wig and glasses, sitting in church,with the caption underneath “Being a life-long independent Baptist wolf, Peter felt justified in stealing sheep from other flocks.”
I can imagine a baptistry with sharks swimming around a circle within it, and the pastor saying to the fearful-looking teenager “As Paul tells us in Romans …all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death.”
In other words, church needs to encourage finding the lighter side of things.
“Ricky, the sound booth humorist, was known to turn off the pastor’s mic in the middle of the sermon and start playing a Richard Pryor tape.”
There’s a time to be serious. There’s a time to share hope and peace. And there’s a time to laugh.
“Ted didn’t see the humor in it. The one Sunday he fell alseep in church, the congregation had exited quietly and placed empty clothing on the pews with a sign, ‘Raptured! Sorry you couldn’t come.’”
Solomon wrote that there was “…a time to weep and a time to laugh” (Ecclesiastes 3:4a).
Look for the humor in church. I believe that it is one step along the journey to experiencing joy.
Categories: Christianity, Community, Freedom, Grace, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: advent candle, Baptism, communion, deacons, Ecclesiastes, grape juice, laughter, practical jokes, pranks, Solomon, The Far Side
Comments: Be the first to comment
June 5, 2013
WORDS FROM W.W. June 5, 2013
I used to be a separatist. The peas never touched the carrots on my dinner plate. Although the salad was tossed in to a heap of disarray it was kept in a separate bowl barely in the same zip code as the baked chicken. Gravy was allowed on the potatoes, but only if they were mashed!
And then I discovered mixed nuts- cashews in the same can with filberts, walnuts chumming up with almonds, Brazils cross-culturing with Macadamians. I found out that nuts of different shapes and sizes could be tasty together. This only came after a childhood of salted peanuts. Pecans were something that Georgians had. Our family kept to the basics. If I would have seen a Barzil nut back in those days I would have kept my distance.
Now, decades later, one of the simple pleasures of life is to throw a handful of mixed nuts into my mouth and chew. I feel a little cheated that I didn’t get to indulge earlier in my years.
At a recent meeting of our neighborhood pastors (Lutheran, Presbyterian, Mennonite, United Methodist, Evangelical Covenant, and American Baptist), the idea was thrown around about folks from our different congregations gathering together for conversations on faith questions.
Radical!
The peas were touching the carrots!
Call us radical, but the idea excited us. For most of our weeks we’re in separate “cans”, protected by the “wanna-bes”, and now the possibility of talking with people of other congregations about things of faith was rising to the surface. In the past most of the time that has happened has been because a para-church organization has been having a fund-raising dinner and we rub elbows with the Nazarenes, Episcopalians, and Catholics because we were assigned to the same table.
What might an American Baptist learn from a Mennonite about living out faith? Is the gospel the same for a Presbyterian as it is for a Lutheran? How does the proclamation of Christ happen in different denominations?
So often we have been content to stay in the same can with all the other “nuts” that look like us. Our understanding of scripture is challenged infrequently because we’ve been conditioned to be like one another. “Body life” is important for a congregation, but sometimes we become “body dead” as a result of stagnation. Evangelicals become suspicion of liberals. Pentecostals are leery of liturgists. Caucasian Protestants are nervous about Hispanic Charismatics.
It seems safer to stay in our own comfort zone, where we have a better handle on what is going to happen…so we do!
Over the past seven or eight years our neighborhood churches have gotten to know each other in several ways. The pastors exchange pulpits one Sunday each January. The congregations have loved it, and then we get back to our own “can” again. We’ve teamed together in serving the neighbors in our community two Saturdays each year. This fall we are going to have a recreational volleyball league in our gym, where a devout Mennonite can give a Baptist “a peace of this” in a holy-moly spike.
As pastors, however, we want to take our congregations to the next level of discovering that we’re not that much different from one another, and that we do not serve multiple Jesus’s.
When we can talk about out faith it may bring each one of us to a new understanding as to how to live out our faith.
Pass the pistachios, Merv!
Categories: Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: community ministry, faith discussionss, faith journey, Lutheran, mennonite, mixed nuts, pastors, Presbyterians, Protestant, pulpit exchange, separatist
Comments: Be the first to comment
June 4, 2013
WORDS FROM W.W. June 4, 2013
Working on the staff of Young Life when I was in seminary, and then also being the Youth Minister at a couple of churches, I was trained to “earn the right to be heard’ by the students I worked with. Youth ministry was, and still is, very relational. A young guy struggling with questions about faith needs to know that there is someone he can meet at Starbucks for a chai latte and conversational counseling.
I confess! In those days there was a need to look cool and be cool. It was a part of earning the right to converse about God. Now in my final year of the fifties “cool” is a term I only use to indicate the last of heat in the house. We have more blankets folded and ready on our couch than Bed, bath, and Beyond has in the entire store. “Overheated” for our household now refers to laying on top of the electric blanket.
It seems that the emphasis with most evangelicals, myself included, is on having a personal relationship with our heavenly father who has his son be crucified on the cross out of love for us.
There is nothing incorrect about that. It’s scripturally right on. John 3:16 makes that intimately clear. The struggle is that we so often make the mystery of the holy absent from our faith. We like to snuggle up with God, like a comforter blanket. God-cozy is more to our liking than divine mystery.
One of my friends recently said that the only place we see veils anymore is on Arab women to hide their faces, and on surgeons to protect them from our germs. Veils hide, and we are people who are used to the Freedom of Information Act. We are accustomed to full disclosure.
Scripture includes a number of verses that tell us about the mystery being revealed…and the mystery that is. Paul talked about “the mystery made known to me by revelation” (Ephesians 3:3) and “the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints.” (Colossians 1:26)
But he also talked about the mystery of Christ (Ephesians 3:4, Colossians 4:3)!
The contrast of the gospel is that we can now approach the throne of grace with confidence (Hebrews 4:16), but the will not ever in this lifetime understand the ways of God. Revelation is partnered with mystery. The veil was torn away from the Holy of Holies, and yet are eyes do not fully see the moving of God.
And we shouldn’t! Mystery is what keeps drama in the story. If life was void of mystery our little ones would no longer ask the question “why?” Why questions lead them along the path of discovery.
Why do we have two ears and one nose?
I don’t know. Perhaps it has something to do with Mr. Potato Head. He would look weird with two noses and only one ear.
Why are some people scared of spiders?
Because they are…including me.
Why do women put make-up on, but men just put on deodorant?
Because men are in a hurry in the morning, and women…never mind, don’t tell Mommy I said anything about that!
Why does bacon taste so good?
Ahhhh….
The longer I walk with God the more comfortable I am with the Mystery. I also have a sense of peace knowing that I am always able to cry out to him, and he will embrace me. Perhaps that’s “cozy’, but I see it as evidence of the God who comes near.
Categories: children, Christianity, Faith, Freedom, Jesus, love, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: blanket, Colossians, comforter, cool, Corinthians, Cozy, Ephesians, evangelicals, Faith, holy, Young Life, youth minister
Comments: Be the first to comment
June 3, 2013
WORDS FROM W.W. June 3, 2013
One of the toughest things for a Christ-follower to struggle with is when someone he knows well…someone who has been a follower of Christ, comes to a time when he doesn’t seem to be following anymore.
It is quite convenient at that point for the committed follower to hold to the belief that someone can lose their salvation. It’s the easy way out. He’s in, now he’s out. He’s saved, now he’s not saved. There’s a bad odor present in that. It smells of judging someone’s spiritual condition on the basis of their actions and attitude.
Granted that the Bible talks about faith and actions, but I’ve witnessed a number of followers who can speak the Godly language, quote scripture like an attorney quotes the legal code, testify to God’s provision…and then hold to racist beliefs or a coldheartedness towards the poor.
I believe it is much more difficult, but scriptural, to hold to a faith that is immersed in grace. Grace doesn’t race to condemnation, but rather stays the course with the follower who has seemed to adopt an attitude of apathy.
So what does a Christ-follower do?
It begins with prayer. Cry out to God! Prayer is the seeking of divine intervention and interaction. Sometimes we fall victim to the idea that we have to fix someone. We strategize and come up with a three step plan. Prayer becomes an addendum to the plan.
Prayer is surrendering the person and our thoughts to the Lord. Perhaps God has someone else who will step into the gap…and it isn’t you.
A second step is having dialogue with the person to discover what it is that he believes. What does he believe about faith, how God interacts with us, and his purpose for this life? There’s a lot of weird stuff out there. Most of us have “customized faiths” that we’ve formed around us that best suit our lives. I may have strong beliefs about being stewards of the environment because I do a lot of hiking and backpacking, but doubt that God desires intimacy with me because I’m not comfortable with a faith that involves my emotions. Each one of us, whether we know it or not, has shaped our faith to embrace what we don’t struggle with.
To dialogue with someone who seems to be more interested in NASCAR than he is in having a God thing happen may reveal things that can be slowly pursued. (I want you to notice that I used NASCAR as the example because I have no interest in it. I can not say the same at certain times about Michigan State basketball, fried scallops, and Sunday afternoon naps.)
A third step is guiding conversations with the person about the faith journey. Instead of asking a lot of questions that begin with the words “Why don’t you…” start conversations, or at least the thinking about, with words like “Did you ever think about…” or “Has God seemed to be quiet lately?” or “Do you ever wonder if God is really interested in us?”
Our well-founded concern for the person sometimes causes us to chase him towards the throne of grace, or “guilt him” towards God. Guilt works well in getting out kids to eat their cooked spinach, but does very little good in having someone rediscover the intimacy of God.
Finally, we must stay the course. We see the immediate, but God sees over the next hill. Perseverance is as much a part of running our own race as it is a part of walking alongside someone who is on a different pace. Remember, there are plenty of people who abandon, but few who are willing to stay the course with the person.
Pray long. Be grace. Stay the course.
Categories: Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Jesus, love, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: apathy, condemnation, conversations, following Christ, fried scallops, losing your salvation, Nascar, perseverance, Prayer, Salvation
Comments: Be the first to comment
June 3, 2013
WORDS FROM W.W. June 2, 2013
There is something about our mindset that is strange. We often long for, and pray for, the touch of God upon our lives in such powerful ways, and yet when someone proclaims that he has experienced a powerful encounter with the Lord we are, more often than not, suspicious.
Perhaps it is because we aren’t quite sure God would present himself in such a way.
Or it could be that we are a bit jealous that someone else gets to experience the hand of God instead of us. Kind of like getting new underwear for Christmas while our sibling gets new Legos. Who would be happy about that?
Or perhaps it is because we’ve gotten burned for believing that such things happen too many times. Someone tells us how God has appeared to him, and then we find out a while later that it was all a hoax. We wanted to believe. Believing is risking, but like the boy who cried “Wolf!”, too many false alarms has left us leery of trusting in the real holy moment.
Let’s be honest! Sometimes people use our tendency to be gullible towards spiritual matters to pull the wool over our eyes.
The tragedy is that God still is working, and moving, and healing. He is still the God of the burning bush and closed lions’ mouths.
Facebook and Youtube have made us instant celebrities, but also immediately doubtful. As our culture becomes less familiar with the Bible it becomes prone more to being swayed by the spectacular. What if God, however chooses to be in the calm, the gentle whisper? At that point do we become visually-impaired to his hand?
I’ve witnessed a person be overwhelmed by the singing of a praise song. God was doing something in her life. I’ve also experienced the moving of God in the midst of a conversation with one other person. But I’ve also felt the uneasiness over the sharing of what was perceived as being a great moving of the Spirit.
It is confusing.
When talking to the Corinthian church about their worship issues, Paul said something that applies to this spiritual suspicion we feel. He writes, “When we worship the right way, God doesn’t stir us up into confusion; he brings us into harmony. This goes for all the churches- no exceptions.” (1 Corinthians 14:35, The Message)
If it is confusing, perhaps it needs further inspection, further contemplation and prayer. God is not a God of confusion, but he is the God of people who are quite often confused.
Categories: Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Holy Spirit, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: 1 Corinthians, Bible, burning bush, Confusing, discernment, harmony, Spiritual, Wolf, Worship
Comments: Be the first to comment
May 27, 2013
WORDS FROM W.W. May 27, 2013
“Would Jesus Defriend Me?”
I was doing some cleaning house today. Facebook friend cleaning, that is!
Something had to give. I was starting to feel like an extreme Facebook friend hoarder. And it isn’t that I’m that popular. I don’t want you to think that “I’m all that.” I can’t even remember what LOL stands for! I don’t even play Farmville, or whatever the new games are that some of my Facebook friends keep requesting me to try.
It’s just that I’ve continued to accumulate friends like books. My personal library includes more books that I’ve never read than books that I have read…and I keep buying more. Amazon makes it too easy!
So today I started making the “friend cuts”, like it was an NFL free agents camp.
Too weird? Cut!
Can’t remember who she is? Cut!
Too many requests to play Bingo Blitz? Cut!
Bad memories of? Sliced!
Tendency to say stupid things? Gone!
Michigan State hater? Cut, cut, cut!
Facebook gangsta’ picture poses! Tossed!
Infatuated with “Bridezillas”? Hurled!
Snooki followers! Fried!
In a matter of a few minutes I was able to shave away some excess friend-age. I almost felt like I was in Washington, deciding on what stays in the budget and what gets the ax.
It wasn’t that I was ruthless. I still have two Ruth’s in my friend list,and, coincidentally, I was reading the Book of Ruth this morning.
Go figure!
I discovered that defriending with Facebook is almost as easy as friending. It didn’t involve heated conversations, or physical violence. All I had to do was make my way to the appropriate list, point the finger (the one next to the thumb, mind you!) at “defriend” and click.
See ya!
And then I got to thinking, like a good guilt-ridden Baptist would, whether Jesus would ever defriend me? Would me cut me from his list if I hadn’t IM’ed him for a while? Would he scrutinize my posts and block me like a Halloween movie? Would he become disinterested in what is going on in my life? Would I not make his “A” list and get tossed in a holy cut-back?
Would Jesus be my friend until someone better came along?
And, of course, the answers to all these questions would be that Jesus would never defriend me…regardless! No matter how much time I gave to Farmville instead of him…no matter how many instant messages I didn’t reply too.
Even…no matter how many rumors I circulated about him!
Jesus would never defriend me…no matter what!
Categories: Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Humor, Jesus, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Baptist, Bingo Blitz, Bridezillas, cleaning, cut, Facebook, Farmville, guilt, guilt-ridden, hoarder, Snooki
Comments: Be the first to comment
April 2, 2013
WORDS FROM W.W. April 2, 2013
In basketball there is a negative comment that is sometimes made about a tall player who can’t catch, rebound, play defense, or shoot. Someone will see a player like that and say, “There’s a waste of height!”
It is meant to characterize the player as, pretty much, being useless. The same statement, with some revisions, has been made about musicians, football players, artists, and others. Let’s face it! We are often more prone to be critical than affirming.
But there is an interesting story that occurs in Luke 13 with Jesus that is a variation on the theme of wasted space. It revolves around a parable he tells about using up good soil. Here’s the scripture:
“A man had a fig tree, planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard. ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’
‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’” (Luke 13:6-9, NIV)
Bottom line! The fig tree was using up good soil! Undoubtedly it was sucking up nutrients and water that could help the other parts of the vineyard to grow healthier. It was a pothole that had become a sinkhole! It was like the “one low price” that had taken on so many additional fees that you no longer could even see the original one low price.
Just as many of the parables of Jesus prompted a number of thoughts and reactions, this parable follows suit. There is an obvious correlation between the fruitless fig tree and the nation of Israel at that time. Micah 7:1 comes to mind: “What misery is mine! I am like one who gathers summer fruit at the gleaning of the vineyard; there is no cluster of grapes to eat, none of the early figs that I crave!”
As I have re-read the parable many times I’m also struck by how it speaks to me, to my purpose, my life direction. Is there sometimes a restlessness in my life that could be summarized as a waste of good soil? Am I sometimes a user of good soil with no fruit to show for it?
Yesterday, here in Colorado Springs, watering restrictions went into effect. Since our residence is an even numbered address we are allowed to water our lawn and bushes on Sundays and Wednesdays. One of the results of the watering restrictions in the coming months will be that people will be a little bit more aware of what needs water, and what is a waste of water.
Is my life a waste of the grace of God? It’s a question I wrestle with. Without sounding arrogant, I believe that God has graced me with some incredible gifts. Like the tall basketball player ( I sometimes dream of being tall!), I realize being gifted, or blessed, and using your gifts are two different things.
Because of the weirdness of my mind I also think of the parable in relation to the Church. If a church is using up good soil, the Vineyard Owner is taking a dim view of things. Existing is not the purpose. It is not the end all! Passing a budget for the next year is not an indication of fruitfulness and fulfilling purpose. Having a full calendar of weekly events is not even an indication of fruitfulness.
Could it be that the vineyard worker is going to try to re-fertilize one more time and wait to see if the figs start appearing?
Tough questions that lead me in my journey this week. In the meantime there are a couple of pot holes in the parking lot that aren’t getting smaller, and a tall basketball player I know who has a hard time walking and chewing gum at the same time. Throwing a basketball in right now is not a pretty sight!
Categories: Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Jesus, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: critical, fertilize, fig tree, focus, fruitfulness, good soil, Israel, Micah, Parables, Purpose, vineyard, waste of talent, watering restirctions
Comments: Be the first to comment
March 29, 2013
WORDS FROM W.W. March 29, 2013
As I write this blog post I have earbuds in and I’m listening to Darlene Zschech sing beautiful praise songs on Spotify. If you arent familiar with Spotify that means you are probably still paying for the music you listen to. Spotify is free…unless you go premium…which they hope you will! Premium is $9.99 a month and it means you can listen to music without any commercial interruptions. It’s like a music DVR. You can fast forward through the ads.
But, in terms of music, I’m cheap! So I go free and basic. What that means is that every four songs or so you get “commercialed up.” It makes for an interesting combination. Since Spotify is a music supplier that has Christian music as just one of it’s listening possibilities the advertisers to the business are all over the map.
For instance, I’m listening to Darlene sing the great song “I Will Wait.” The song ends and a commercial comes on advertising Trojan condoms. Awkward!
One moment I’m listening to Barbi Franklin play “Breathe on Me, Breath of God!” on her violin, and the next I’m being invited to a party where the beer is flowing.
Such pendulum swings are hard for me to make. I could pay the ten bucks a month and stay secluded in my own little between-the-ears world, but I won’t!
It seems, however, that our culture is more and more comfortable with the pendulum swings. Listen! I am not such a prude that I’m going to cast Trojans and tequila into the lake of fire. It seems that is also a polarizing element in our world; too often giving verdicts that something or someone is totally demonic or something or someone is the next thing to being in heaven. We have a hard time saying that something can fluctuate from good to bad depending on the situation.
It also seems that more and more people are comfortable with a Spotify kind of theology. A belief system that operates without concern for conflicting practices. For instance, I can pray for the leading of the Holy Spirit in my life this afternoon, and gather with a few friends to use a Ouiji board tonight.
Whereas my generation is uncomfortable with such diverse practices, other generations are not as uneasy with them. However, that isn’t meant to be a slam, because I think other generations, especially the current young adults, are more willing to dialogue with people they may disagree with. There seems to be more of a willingness to converse and learn from one another.
The red flag for any generation is being so immersed in the culture that our theology starts resembling basic Spotify. Praising Jesus one moment, and deciding on what type of condom I”ll buy your tonight the next.
Do I have solutions or answers? No, we seem to be too quick to give solutions and slow to listen. We live in a world of intertwining connections. So I want the free music, but without the commercials…and yet a big reason the music is free is because of the commercials. One can not operate without the other.
So I’ll continue to listen to Darlene Zschech sing the song “Under Grace”, and then try to live by grace
Categories: Christianity, Community, Freedom, Grace, Jesus, love, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: commercials, Darlene Zschech, music, Spotify, theology
Comments: Be the first to comment
March 28, 2013
WORDS FROM W.W. March 27, 2013
Carol and I had a unique experience this week while we were in Albuquerque. We went to a restaurant called “Tim’s Place.” (“http://timsplaceabq.com”)
“Tim” is Tim Harris. He was born in 1986 with Down’s Syndrome. His life could be characterized as one that continues to exceed expectations. Tim was voted Homecoming King of his high school in 2004. He was voted “Student of the Year” by his school administration and faculty. Friendliness is his gift. The slogan of Tim’s Place is “Breakfast. Lunch. Hugs.” Tim is the hugger. He roams the restaurant chatting with people and giving hugs. A digital counter on the wall keeps track of the number of hugs given. When we were there it was registering around 88,000.
Carol, who has a heart for kids with special needs, watched Tim carefully as he gave attention especially to little kids, children, and senior citizens (We aren’t quite there yet!). He took the role of host, conversationalist, chuckler, coffee refiller, and whatever else needed to be done.
Carol heard about Tim’s Place from watching a feature about it on NBC’s Today show. The restaurant was started by his mom and dad, who were looking for a way to help Tim experience success. His ability to make people feel welcome was evident from working at a Red Robin restaurant in prior years.
There was something special about the restaurant. The lady who waited on us seemed happy…joy-filled. In fact, everybody who worked at Tim’s seemed in good spirits.
Oh, that more of life was like Tim’s Place! Unfortunately it seems to be more of an oasis in a desert of self-centeredness. A day after we were there our youngest daughter called to say that her boyfriend’s house in another part of Albuquerque was broken into in broad daylight and the thieves made off with a few items.
That’s how our world is! Hugs here, hoodlums there!
Categories: children, Community, Freedom, Grace, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Albuquerque, Down's Syndrome, hospitality, restaurant, Tim's Place, welcome
Comments: Be the first to comment
Words from WW Blog 