As far as I can remember, she gave me that look once and only once. We were sitting on a couch, nestled together. I casually glanced down at her only to be captured by her eyes and I knew if I asked she would give. It was the most frightening and exhilarating moment of my life. I'm sure that it was what one feels like standing in the open door of a plane at 10,000 feet ready to jump. The roar is all you hear, the wind is all you feel, and you're one step away from flying. It was at that moment I realized that it wasn't just me making this jump. She and I would have to make this jump together. We were two people with two separate chutes that could tangle in the fall. I wasn't sure I would have the strength to push her away before we had fallen too far to open our chutes separately and land safely. I realized this could quickly become a passionate tangle that would plummet us both to the ground. We might survive the impact but it would hurt. I wouldn't do that to her but turning away from her loving gaze was the hardest thing I have ever had to do.

Sometimes I get really frustrated by the way we do things here at JPUSA. I happened to a part of a conversation between an older christian man and one of the heads of Project 12(P12), JPUSA's discipleship training school. I introduced the two and the man seemed genuinely interested in the program asked about curriculum and specific theological disciplines covered in the course. The P12 leader started on about the different classes and activities that the students would be involved in during the first and third trimester and the classes that would be take place the first 3 weeks of the second trimester but finish in the third and how some of the student come in the middle of trimesters so they break some classes up to accommodate the new students and could see the man getting more and more confused. Until the older man asked in utter bewilderment what school model we were following. Then it was our P12 leader's turn to be confused,"Model? We don't really have a model. We're just trying to do this the best that we know how." The man got it. We have no clue what we're doing. The conversation ended shortly after and he went on his way after politely shaking our hands. I was so embarrassed.

This happens to me a lot at JPUSA. I am constantly embarrassed by our inability to look at a situation and say well this is the way that other people have done this same thing in the past so maybe we should emulate that with a few alterations to fit our unique lifestyle. Instead we often learn the long hard way how not to do something by trying to figure it out ourselves and then try over and over and over again until we give up on it or we make it accidentally work somehow. There have been a few situations where we have been made by law to conform to some standard and we are learning to live within those constraints although not comfortably.

This is a constant frustration in my life. I see us jumping into things without taking the time to count the costs and then get just far enough in to not be able to back out but not far enough to be able to put into something what it needs to succeed. First of all we're 15 years behind the times. Things that worked marginally even 5 or 6 years ago will not work today. Multiply that by 3 and you'll see that we're way out of the loop. To give you an example, flyers are our idea of promoting a show at our twice a month coffee house. We also still think that if you build it they will come. The problem is that anything we are thinking of has already been done and has way better promotion.

You want people to come to you to see what you have, first you have to let them know you have something to offer and second you have to convince them that they need what you have. Right now, people want to interact with their entertainment. People these days want a sense of community. At JPUSA, we take that so much for granted because we live in our community. We have community surrounding us constantly even invading on every aspect of our lives. The last thing we want is create more community. So we haphazardly throw things out there in the hopes that somebody will see the commotion and come in asking,"What is this place?"

I see so much potential in what we have to offer but right now I see our community as a yard sale where real treasures can be found if you're willing to hunt through the piles of rubbish. Most people aren't willing to take the time to stop and look. They see that finding anything here would take too much work and they can go down to the mega-store to find what they're really looking for right on the numbered and organized shelf. Easy to buy, easy to use.

So you might be asking yourself so why does this guy live there? Why does he subject himself to all this unnecessary frustration and angst? Surely he is a man who could succeed without them and I'm sure I could also. In fact I have been offered success more than once and in all honesty I couldn't tell you why I didn't take it except to say that the kind of financial and career success I have had opportunities to take have felt wrong. Not in a moral sense, I don't believe that making money or have a successful career makes you evil. I just understood that, as much as I would like it to be, it wasn't my place. In the end I am not meant for easy over the counter Christianity. I need to hunt for it. I need to search and find the treasures that will have more meaning in the long run than instant gratification of my selfish ego. I'm also pretty lazy by nature and if I wasn't forced to look at the faces of those who day in and day out make my life uncomfortable believe me I wouldn't.

Community forces me to look at my own inadequacies in the face. When I get angry or frustrated because of what someone has done to me or what the system has allowed a person to get away with or when I just don't want to have to talk to a certain person who has an abrasive personality, I can't just walk away from it. I will see that person again and I will have to interact with them again at some point. So in the end it's not about what you accomplish how you behave toward others while you're trying to get it done. If I steamroll over you because you're in my way but I get the job done on time was it worth it in the long run? I forget often that God's bigger picture is all about the little things. It's about the cup of kool-aid for Freddie, it's about showing up for dishes, it's about spending 5 min which turns into an hour listening to someone, it's about saying thanks to the cooks after pork and white beans.

As for success, who knows what success really is when the most successful man who ever lived left his job as a carpenter to teach the world about God's love and was killed for it. I wonder sometimes if what I seek is success or security. And what of all these failures that I am constantly beholding in life at JPUSA? What of them? Who am I to call them failures? Do I know how the hand of God is moving in every little action or inaction, every success or failure? How arrogant am I to think that I know better how to manage God's people than He does. I have no idea what the God's bigger picture looks like and I need to humbly accept that. When I see our community throw money and resources into a project I believe is doomed to fail that is where God can be seen the most. Because it will not be by our power or expertise that we succeed but by His grace and blessing. And that is where fruit is born. Out of faithful service and prayer, in face of insurmountable odds is where we find peace in God for that is where we are most sure His hand is working.