One of my favorite bloggers is Michael Spencer, aka The Internet Monk.

Michael writes with wit, conviction and a wealth of knowledge and experience. Click on this link to read one of the most important and provocative essays he’s ever written, a three-part challenge to all of us who love Jesus and His Church - “The Coming Evangelical Collapse.”

We live in a time of great upheaval. But when everything’s falling apart, it’s also coming together.

One week from tonight will be the big event - Lord Save Us From Your Followers at Bandera Rd Community Church with special guest writer/director/producer Dan Merchant doing a Q & A with the audience afterwards.

As an added bonus, we’ll also have 15-20 area ministries joining us for an Outreach Fair to provide information and interaction about the great work they’re doing in San Antonio to minister to the least of these.

Tomorrow night - Sunday, March 1 - Dan will do a live interview at 8:00 p.m. on KSLR’s (630 AM) “Resistance Radio.” Be sure to listen in and invite others to do the same.

On Friday, March 6, Dan will be on KENS 5’s “Great Day SA” morning program, which starts at 9:00 a.m.

Also, Dan has appeard on the Today Show with Matt Lauer and Robert Schuller’s Hour of Power - both of those interview segments do a very good job of helping people understand what the movie is all about. Those are included in the links below.

We’re working on other media opportunities for Dan to spread the word about the event at BRCC next Saturday, March 7, but the greatest promotional tool we have is you!

Talk it up at church tomorrow, call your friends and work you networks - let’s show Dan that San Antonio is a city serious about being part of this national conversation about how the Body of Christ can be the hands and feet of Jesus - as well as his mouth - to the culture we live in.

Here are some helpful links -

Lord Save Us From Your Followers website -

http://lordsaveusthemovie.com

Lord Save Us From Your Followers YouTube channel -

http://www.youtube.com/user/lordsaveusthemovie

Today Show interview with Matt Lauer -

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/24047551#24047551

Hour of Power interview with Robert Schuller -

http://www.crystalcathedral.org/hour_of_power/index.php

To watch the entire movie online -

http://www.sermonspice.com/lsupreview

Look forward to seeing each of you next Saturday, March 7 @ 7:00 pm at Bandera Rd Community Church (9431 Bandera Rd).

Tim Adams
210.262.0342

Corriente Ministries is very pleased to announce that the eye-opening documentary Lord Save Us From Your Followers (reviewed here on 6/27/08) will be screened at Bandera Rd Community Church (BRCC) at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, March 7. BRCC is located at 9431 Bandera Rd in San Antonio

As an added bonus, Dan Merchant, the writer/director/producer of Lord Save Us From Your Followers, will be with us that evening and have a Question & Answer time with the audience following the film. We’re anticipating that to be the first of many honest conversations within the Body of Christ and between believers and non-believers about how Christ Followers in San Antonio can make a difference in Jesus’ name for the sake of our city.

In addition to encouraging this much needed conversation, our goal is to provide the Body of Christ in San Antonio with practical hands-on oppotunities to work for the peace of our city in Jesus’ name. As great as it will be to gather people together, challenge them with the message of the film and engage them in a conversation with Dan, the greater purpose of our time together will be to learn how we can “be the change we want to see” in San Antonio.

As we gather that evening, we’ll also be joined by ministries from all over the San Antonio area that are involved in hands-on ministry in the urban and inner city areas of our city, serving the underserved and working in Jesus’ name to break the bonds of generational cycles of dependency and poverty.

If you are involved in such a ministry that wants to connect with the larger Body of Christ in San Antonio, please contact me so that we can reserve a space for you. Tables will be available for you to distribute information, sign up volunteers and spread the word about the Kingdom work you’re doing in San Antonio. The film and the conversation will present the challenge - your presence will provide the opportunity to connect talk with action.

For the past two years Corriente Ministries has been working with schools, churches and ministries all over San Antonio to help them find ways to connect, empower and transform their communities. But, even as diligent as we’ve been to learn about what’s going on in inner city and urban ministry in San Antonio, there are still many ministries, churches and individuals who are faithfully being the hands and feet of Jesus in our city that we haven’t met yet.

If you know of a ministry in San Antonio that could benefit from this kind of event, please have them contact me. There are many Christ Followers doing good things in our city and we want to use this opportunity to connect them with each other and with individual believers who are looking for a place to serve.

This will be a free event - there will not be any charge for admission or for having a table to connect people to your ministry. There will be an offering taken to cover Dan’s expenses and anything given above what Dan needs will be donated to Strong Foundation, a ministry serving families in transition on the Eastside.

So, spread the word. As Dan Merchant loves to say, “The conversation starts now!”

At 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, March 7 at BRCC, the conversation will move toward action to transform San Antonio. Looking forward to seeing everyone at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, March 7 at BRCC.

Tim Adams
u2wesley@yahoo.com
210.262.0342

Click on this link to go to the official Lord Save Us From Your Followers website.

Click on this link to see the reaction of the audience at a previous screening of Lord Save Us From Your Followers.

Click on this link to watch the entire movie online.

Click on this link to read a recent review that appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times.

Click on this link to read my article in the Jan. 17 edition of the San Antonio Express-News about Urban Connection, a Corriente partner that is making an impact on the Westside of San Antonio.

Next Wednesday, Nov. 19 Corriente Ministries will be hosting a luncheon for Mission Year at 12:00 Noon in the Parish Hall at Christ Episcopal Church - 510 Belknap Pl. - one block north of San Antonio College. John Piercy, the Director of Development for Mission Year, will be coming from Chicago to present the Mission Year vision at the luncheon.

Mission Year was started in 1996 in Philadelphia by Bart Campolo on the simple idea of Christian young adults giving a year of their lives to Christian ministry in the inner cities of America’s urban centers. Twelve years later, Mission Year has 16 teams operating in 6 cities - Philadelphia, Camden NJ, Wilmington DE, Chicago, New Orleans and Atlanta.

Mission Year is a year long urban ministry program focused on Christian service and discipleship. They take teams of young people, place them in an area of need, and help them to serve people and create community. They are committed to the command of Jesus to “love God and love people,” by placing the needs of their neighbors first and developing committed disciples of Christ with a heart for the poor.

When I first began this conversation with John Piercy about 6 months ago, I was excited to learn that San Antonio was already on Mission Year’s wish list of cities they wanted to expand to. This is a God-given opportunity for churches and ministries in San Antonio to partner with Mission Year to expand the Kingdom of God in our city. A Mission Year presence in San Antonio will provide a pool of gifted, highly committed, high energy followers of Jesus Christ to work in and with urban ministry partners already established in some of the neediest and most underserved neighborhoods in San Antonio.

Working with Mission Year is a great example of the Corriente philosophy of developing strategic partnerships to do Kingdom work in San Antonio. Our simple mantra, “Don’t reinvent the wheel, connect the dots,” is more than just a slogan, it’s a core value that we seek to implement in every relationship we cultivate.

A Mission Year presence in San Antonio would be able to provide Corriente partners such as San Antonio Youth for Christ, Urban Connection and Agora Ministries with workers who will be more than just volunteers to work in programs, as important as that is. Mission Year volunteers will all spend a year following Jesus’ command to “Love the Lord your God, and love your neighbor as yourself.” By partnering with a local church, volunteering at a service site, and living in the neighborhoods where they serve, Mission Year Team Members effectively impact their communities while catching a deeper vision for what the Kingdom of God is like.

One of the most effective Mission Year groups in the country is in Atlanta, where they work very closely with Bob Lupton’s FCS Urban Ministries. When I had the opportunity to interview Dr. Lupton a few months ago, he had this to say about the impact Mission Year has made on his work in Atlanta:

Here in Atlanta we’ve had the advantage of having Mission Year as one of our partners. Many of the Mission Year kids, a good strong core of them, have decided to stay here in the city and they’ve been good leaders. Our current COO is a Mission Year grad. Finding a way to get younger people immersed in inner city/urban work will be a key to the long term success of this kind of ministry in any city.

Beyond just a one-year service commitment, Mission Year represents the opportunity for long-term sustainable transformational ministry in San Antonio neighborhoods, schools, ministries and churches that for too long have been overlooked, underserved and written off.

Please join us next Wednesday, November 19 at 12:00 Noon in the Parish Hall at Christ Episcopal Church as we hear from John and learn what it will take to bring Mission Year to San Antonio. This is a unique opportunity to learn more about Mission Year and how you, your ministry and your church can be a part of a new era in Urban Ministry in San Antonio.

Please RSVP by Monday, Nov. 17 to let me know you’ll be coming - and feel free to invite others from your church or place of ministry - especially any young adults who are college-aged or recent college graduates and who would be good candidates to be part of our first San Antonio Mission Year Team.

This is a free event an our lunch will be provided by Swede’s Restaurant - which guarantees it will be a physical and spiritual feast you won’t want to miss.

If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact me at u2wesley@yahoo.com or on my cell at 210.262.0342.

Grace, Peace and Dirty Fingernails,

Tim Adams
210.262.0342

We always walk a fine line when we try to talk about politics and religion in the same conversation. Click on this link to read my latest attempt at walking that tightrope. And feel free to leave a comment here or at the Express-News website. Thanks for reading.

I’ll be getting back to blogging on a regular basis next week. Click on this link to read an article I wrote for today’s (Sat., Sept. 13) San Antonio Express-News.

In additon to the writing I do on this blog, I also do some occasional freelance work for various newspapers, magazines and ezines.

Click on this link to read a short article I wrote for the San Antonio Express-News. It was in this past Saturday’s (August 16) Religion Section.

At the bottom of the article is a Comments Section. Feel free to add your comments there - reader feedback will encourage the Express-News to feature more writing of this kind. But please, no comments about my mug shot that’s featured rather prominently.

Thanks for reading and commenting.

Tim Adams

My 73-year old mom is like a lot of parents from her generation. She still lives in the same house where she raised her kids, the only house she’s ever owned. It’s the same house she’s called home since October of 1964.

But, the neighborhood where my mom put down her roots is a very different place today than what it was 44 years ago. When I was growing up there, I don’t remember anyone who rented rather than owned their home – it’s always been a working class neighborhood, but during my formative years it was a stable and secure place to live.

Today the neighborhood is probably one third to one half renters – very few of the families that had kids who were my peers are still around and transience has become one of the defining characteristics of what was once a modest but solid neighborhood.

Back in the day my friends and I did engage in some occasional pranks that usually involved water balloons or eggs. But today there are the constant reminders of gang activity - the paved drainage ditch that divides her street and the street signs and yard fences in the area are regular targets for tagging – one of the ways gangs stake a claim to their turf.

A few weeks ago, my mom asked me to take a look at a spot on the side of her house where the paint was flaking off – she’d just had the house painted a little over a year ago, so that sort of wear seemed to be premature.

When I went over to look at the area she was concerned about, I wasn’t sure what to make of it, at first glance. The paint was coming off, but it was in small spots sprayed in a circular pattern and confined to a small area near one of the front windows. As I looked closer I could see small silver bb’s embedded in the spots on the siding where the paint was coming off.

Then I realized what had happened - my mom’s house had been hit by a shotgun blast, most likely fired from a passing car.

When I called the police the first officer who arrived confirmed my suspicions. A report was taken and later a crime scene team arrived to take photographs. As the team was doing its work I had a long conversation with one of the officers who stated they’d been closely monitoring the steady rise in gang activity in my mom’s neighborhood.

But, I’m not going to try to talk my mom into moving to a “safer” neighborhood – she values her independence and my older sister and I have had those conversations before and we know she’s happy where she is.

But, I’ll admit, my motives for wanting her to stay are also somewhat selfish. A big reason why I wouldn’t want my mom to move is that I don’t want to lose a great next door neighbor.

For the past three years my family and I have lived in the same neighborhood where I grew up. We own the house next door to mom, the house built by Norm Hastings, who was my Little League Baseball coach when I was in the fourth grade. There were five kids in the Hastings family and Norm added a second story to the house to accommodate his large clan, which makes it a great fit for our four kids.

Rare is the weekend night that we don’t have at least one and often two extra kids spending the night, testing their skills on Guitar Hero or Rock Band into the early morning hours or working on a script for a new video to upload to YouTube.

I like the fact that kids like to come to our house. When you live in a rough neighborhood, it’s important to have places to go that are safe – and fun.

But, regardless of where you live, there are choices to be made. I can’t tell you how many times people who live in more affluent, often gated communities, have confessed to me that they worry that they’re raising their kids in a cocoon – an artificial world of homogeneity and Stepford-esque conformity.

I tell them they should be concerned because not only is such an environment out of step with reality today, it will be even more of an aberration by the time our children reach our age.

By the year 2015, white people like me will no longer be in the majority in the State of Texas. By the middle of this century, that will be true of the entire U.S. population. Before the middle of the third decade of this century, the economy of China will be larger than that of the U.S. There are already more internet users in China than in the U.S.

The Christian Church will continue to shrink in Europe and North America while at the same time continuing its exponential growth in Africa, Latin America and Asia. The face and flavor of World Christianity is going to change in dramatic ways that will expose the ethnocentric biases that have too often been taken for granted – but had little or nothing to do with the Gospel.

Oh the times, they are a changin – and if Jesus were here today (physically), I just don’t think he’d be trying to run away from these realities. I don’t think he’d be very interested in churches that are little more than lifestyle enclaves – regardless of how big they are. I don’t believe that he would be impressed by a church or ministry that grew by taking the path of least resistance, or that could only measure its growth in numbers of bodies and the size of its budget.

We are moving into a time in history when the long overlooked - the last - will truly be first – and those who have been first for so long will be moving further down the line.

And if the Church of Jesus Christ doesn’t repent and truly become the new humanity that God intended it to be, where faith in Christ Jesus is what makes each of you equal with each other, whether you are a Jew or a Greek, a slave or a free person, a man or a woman (Galatians 3:28 CEV), then I do not believe that the ultimate outcome of such a demographic shift will be achieved with justice for everyone involved.

The Church’s obedience to its calling to be a house of prayer for all people will determine the course of history. We have gone down the path of comfort and conformity toward Babel, but God is calling us to the difficulty and diversity of Pentecost.

If we will take the road less traveled, it will make all the difference.

Above the fireplace in our home is this framed, three-panel print of the painting Lord, When Did We See You…? by San Antonio artist G. E. Mullan. The picture was a gift to my wife Jennifer and me on the occasion of our first anniversary from my lifetime friend Jeff Vollmer, who was the best man in our wedding.

It’s been a little over 17 years since Jeff gave us that gift, and in that time it’s always hung either in our bedroom or living room in the numerous residences we’ve occupied. Getting married while I was still in school and then trying to find a place of ministry where we could put down some roots has made for a vagabond existence, at times.

If you look very closely at the picture, starting in the upper left hand corner of the canvas, you can see the text of Matthew 25:34-40 running along the edge of the painting:

Then the King will speak to those on his right. He will say, ‘My Father has blessed you. Come and take what is yours. It is the kingdom prepared for you since the world was created. I was hungry. And you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty. And you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger. And you invited me in. I needed clothes. And you gave them to me. I was sick. And you took care of me. I was in prison. And you came to visit me.’ Then the people who have done what is right will answer him. ‘Lord,’ they will ask, ‘when did we see you hungry and feed you? When did we see you thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you as a stranger and invite you in? When did we see you needing clothes and give them to you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ The King will reply, ‘What I’m about to tell you is true. Anything you did for one of the least important of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’

When you make the connection between the text and the painting, you understand Mullan intended it to be a calculated epiphany. Life should imitate art.

Lord, When Did We See You…? represents everything I know God has called me to do as a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For anyone seeking to live a life of discipleship in obedience to the Gospel, the text that inspired this beautiful work is one of the Scriptures that form the biblical basis for such a life - as basic as John 3:16 or The 23rd Psalm.

But, there have been times when its presence in our home has been unsettling rather than inspiring. In particular I remember a time 13 years ago, as I was serving my first church as senior pastor, when I was tempted to relegate it to the attic.

My first church had been through 12 straight years of decline before my arrival. The steady decline in members, programs and giving was, for the most part, caused by several layers of deep-rooted systemic dysfunction. There had been at least three major splits with large numbers of families leaving each time - a familiarity with Systems Theory was a definite necessity for anyone who would serve there. Of course, none of the conflict revolved around anything of significance in terms of Christian doctrine or practice.

As the church was losing members, the neighborhood was also changing and had reached a critical tipping point, going from a 90/10 ratio of whites to blacks to a 60/40 split with African-Americans by then in the majority.

Crime was on the rise, property values were dropping, white flight was rampant and four churches, previously located in our community, had set the pace by selling their properties to African-American congregations and relocating to the more affluent more white and less black suburbs.

From my days in bus ministry as a high school kid in San Antonio and the inner city of Chicago as a college student, to the ways I’d been challenged by people like Tony Campolo, Jim Wallis and Ron Sider to read Scripture differently when I was doing youth ministry in my 20’s, answering the call to that church seemed like a natural step of obedience.

When I understood in greater detail the kind of demographic sea change that was going on in that community and how other churches had chosen to leave rather than change with the community, I saw it as a test of our willingness to be obedient to the Gospel rather than take the easy way out.

Unfortunately, a large portion of the church leadership didn’t see it that way.

A short time after our arrival, I convened a long range planning committee to study what options the church should consider. I spent hours on the phone with consultants and other experts from around the country, read the current literature, sought the counsel of other pastors in the area, visited churches that had relocated and some that had chosen to stay, looked at the ever-increasing needs of our community, had a thorough appraisal done of our church property, looked to the Scripture for guidance and did a lot of praying.

The conclusion reached by a majority of people on the long range planning committee was that the church should sell its property and use the proceeds from that sale to relocate the church to the suburbs. When the day came for the church to vote on whether to accept the committee’s recommendation, I presented it to the church and stated that I would not vote for it.

The measure failed to pass – not even getting a simple majority of the congregation’s votes, with the most common comment being “Come up with a better plan.” I was naïve enough to think we would.

When I went by my office one Saturday afternoon about four weeks later, I found several envelopes slipped under my office door. Inside each envelope was a letter of resignation from a key leader in the church, stating that they and their families would not be back.

I wish I could tell you that others stepped up to fill those leadership vacancies and that the church became a witness to the community through its willingness to stay rather than leave, that new members came and that the church grew, breaking out of the downward spiral it had been in for 12 years. It would be nice to be able to say that their departure removed obstacles that the church needed to get past in order to fulfill its mission and calling. But, before long, others left and some of those who stayed were convinced that I should be next.

We held on there for three long years - there were never enough votes to get rid of me, just enough to make me miserable. We made every sacrifice we could to try to make it work but never really developed any sort of traction in terms of ministry. That was one of the loneliest and most miserable times of my life.

Looking back, there are certainly things I would do differently, if given the chance to do them over. I was young and naïve and certainly didn’t walk on water – but there is nothing I could have done, other than compromising the convictions I had then and still have now – in order to create a different outcome. That’s what bothered me the most.

Wasn’t God supposed to grant us success in exchange for our willingness to be faithful? We did what was right, so why wasn’t God keeping up His end of the bargain?

Of course, life and ministry are much more complicated than some sort of simple exchange of sacrifice for success, because obedience isn’t always measured in sacrifice (I. Samuel 15:22). And there are no bargains to be made with God.

If you’re called to the kind of ministry described in Mullan’s painting and Matthew’s Gospel, don’t expect an immediate return on your investment. But don’t despair, either (Galatians 6:9), because the end of the story is full of surprises.

I believe “Lord, when did we see you…?” is a real question that will be asked by genuinely surprised people. Jesus wasn’t just using a rhetorical device to make a point, He was giving us the clearest account of the Last Judgment found anywhere in Scripture.

Be prepared to be surprised.