Summer 2010
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Do not pass go. Do not Collect 200 dollars
Today I went to visit a few people in the Chattanooga County Jail. Going in I was not that intimidated. Uncomfortable was not exactly the word to describe my feelings but it was pretty in line with my insides. I would say unsure is the best way to describe myself a couple of hours ago.
The Jail was just a weird place. You walk into a very nice, marble lobby with a quote by Aristotle, “At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.” Then you meet the security guard who is your typical southern bell. She was blonde, with a huge smile on her face. You can tell that she really is happy to see you when you arrive. She calls my friend Bobby by name and then she buzzards the door so we can get though to our neighbors. Then she smiles and waves us bye as we enter into a much different atmosphere.
The visitation area is a dull place. It is a hallway with about 10 doors on each side. Behind each door is a 4X4 room with plexiglass separating you from the inmates. Bobby and I walked down to the end of the hall where we met our friend Billy who had arrived a little early. Billy and Bobby introduced me to the to inmates who within the next 90 minutes would capture my heart.
I stepped into the 4X4 room and sat down on a little stool and began to talk to my brother behind the plexi glass. I felt at home. As was not at all uncomfortable. I wasn’t afraid, I wasn’t timid and I wasn’t nervous. I felt at home. I felt back in my happy place. I felt closer to My Lover, my Savior, the homeless Rabi and the slaughtered Lamb. I felt strong, confident and ready. I felt these things not because I am strong but because the One inside me is strong. For I know I am made whole in my weakness, because One stronger than I fills in the cracks where I fall short.
“I glory in my weaknesses because in my weaknesses He is made strong.”
As I sat on the stool and listened, my heart began to open up once more. We hear a lot about going to place and bringing the good news, but my situation was completely different. I just sat there and listened and the good news was brought to me. My brother on the other side of the glass made me feel welcome. He smiled, warmed me with his kindness, encouraged me with his words and inspired me with his stories. As I listened I was encouraged to talk but I kept assuring my brother that his story is way more interesting than mine. We talked about life and I listened. We talked about his day and I listened. We talked about hate and I listened. We talked about love and I listened.
My brother described to me the day to activities he goes through. He has to pass inspections in his 5X5 cell to be able to eat. If he messes up one thing he does not receive food. The small portions of carbs, carbs and more carbs are never enough to fill even the emptiest of bellies. My brother kept assuring me that it is not that bad though. He knows God has a plan for him. He assures me that he has it better than some of the other inmates, even though he is on the top floor and locked up in his cell, alone, for 23 hours a day. He rejoices with me about how he has a window. Apparently that is a luxury most do not experience.
As we laugh and tell stories, my brother begans to talked about the Bible. How he just finished reading the New Tesament for the second time. Then we joke about some of the weird things that happen in the Old Testament. HAHA, what is God trying to tell us when He says, “Any woman that grabs the testicles of any man in anger will be punished by having her hands severed. If the act of grabbing results in satisfaction for the man, there is no punishment.” HAHA now what is Jesus trying to tell us about that? We then joked about how there is a whole page of, “the son of…the son of…the son of…the son of…the son of…the son of…the son of…the son of…” haha. Jesus is way more interesting. But we did agree that while some parts of the Bible are a bit to boring for our understanding, God has a unique way of telling some of the best actions stories this world will ever know.
Over 90 minutes went by and we could here the guards coming which signaled to us that visitation was over. We prayed and said our goodbyes. There was no handshake, no hug, no kiss, no high five, nothing with physical contact. We instead bunched our fist together, since my brothers were handcuffed, and gently touched the glass. It was like a putting your hand to a Mirror, the outside of the glass followed in symmetry. It was the closest I have ever felt to anyone like that. The last gesture felt like it went through the glass. I longed for it to fall down like the walls of Jericho. And as our hands met, the glass felt like it was no longer there. Love broke through the glass.
The glass was a symbol of our corrupt system and the walls we have build around people to keep us from knowing their hurt. I learned today, that we are all locked in some sort of prison and that Love is the only thing capable of breaking through the glass that separates us from our neighbors.
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It felt like home again.
Last Wednesday I served with the Fusion ministry here at First Baptist at a local Methodist church where the community gets together on Wednesday night and provides a meal for the homeless.
We got together about 3oclock and started preparing the meal. We would end up serving around 50 people that night. We met at the church kitchen about 3 and started cooking. We sliced A TON of watermelon, we made some gravy, we cooked some corn and we baked about 80 pork chops. It was a good time. You can’t beat the conversations one has in a kitchen. All topics are free game and we debated everything from why Payton Manning can’t win a super bowl, to how much better the ACC is than the SEC, and how none us understand why there is an offsides rule in Soccer.
We got to the church around 5 and over the hour people started pouring in. I mingled around and met a lot of neat people. I talked most of the time with a group at the corner table. We had some great conversations. We talked, laughed, joked around, called AJ out when he farted and blamed it on Paul, haha, you know the normal stuff you do with homeless guys on a Wednesday night.
As we talked I began to realize how much I missed surrounding myself with people of struggle. I began to realize how God seems to reserve so many secrets for those on the margin. I love being in the company of my savior. As we talked I began to come alive again. My vision became more clear and my hard heart seemed to soften up. I heard stories of people in a struggle. I saw people acting like a family who looked nothing like each other. I saw the kingdom of God, “on earth as it is in heaven.”
As I listened and loved I felt my heart began to soften and my mind began to open. I had a long talk with a man named AJ, who had once been a very successful entrepreneur. He had, until last year, owned a restaurant on the North Shore of Chattanooga. He had been very successful and had a very good business up until about 3 years ago. Franchises started to move in and his location was to far away from the new, up and coming arts district to turn a decent profit. He told me, “I couldn’t compete with 5 dollar foot longs. I should have listened to my buddy in Real Estate when he told me to move across the highway.” AJ has been homeless now for about 1 year. “I know the Good Lord will take care of me. He always has, and He always will.” Wow. I love entrepreneurs. AJ even expressed interest of riding his bike down to the Gulf Coast and helping out with the Oil Spill. “Wherever there is work, I’ll find it. I know I’ll come back around. It is just a matter of time.” I hope all of you read that! That is inspiring!
When we were eating I looked around and noticed everyone plate was squeaky clean. No food was being wasted. Everyone was offered seconds because we had some left overs. Some took it and some choose to remain filled on one plate. I saw a homeless guy call someone out for taking to much food on their 1st serving! Gandhi’s words rang so clear in my head, “There is enough for every one’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.” God rained down maman from Heaven and promised there would be enough. I could see the kingdom of God, alive again.
Another thing that I noticed was a brother named Danny. He was a skinny lad and he had diabetes. Danny also went up to get seconds. When he returned with his plate, I ask jokingly teased him about how much he could eat. He replied with a smile, “oh no, this is not for me. This is for Big Mike. Is too far of a walk on him to come up for the food, so I bring him a plate.” He explained to that Big Mike was toting about 300lbs and said he was pretty sick as well. My first thought was to write Big Mike off. “That guy is lazy. No wonder he weighs 300lbs and homeless. He wont even get up to bring his fat ass to dinner. What a lazy, worthless piece of crap.” Then I caught myself and realized I was seeing the Kingdom of God right before me, if only I would have “eyes to see”
My mind opened and I realized what I was seeing. I was seeing a Christian. I was seeing a brother. I was seeing someone in my family who actually cared for his neighbor. Danny was not giving Big Mike a handout. It was not socialism, or a communism or any kind of ism. IT WAS A FAMILY TAKING CARE OF FAMILY!!! That brought tears to my eyes. That’s LOVE. That’s GRACE. That is the BEATIDUDES. That is MERCY. THAT IS THE CHURCH. Wow, how I’ve have longed to be back in this moment. This is the reason I came down here. This is God. This is Jesus. This is the Kingdom.
I would like to thank all my homeless brothers and sisters of Chattanooga. You have shown me life. You have opened my eyes. You have been the church. You have been my teachers. You have taught me more about the gospel than any systematic theology ever could.
Thank you,
Colby
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June 4-5.
Relationship Overnight Retreat at Dogwood Camp.
I was looking forward to this weekend. I had met with Jason prior in the week and saw all the cool creative things we would be participating in over the course of the weekend. Jason is a pastor at a church here in Chattanooga. He grew up in Chicago and is now married here in TN. He was head of the government funded group called First things First. So our whole weekend was funded by uncle sam, but managed and guided by Jason. It was cool because the grant allowed for the project to happen but they didn’t try to control the project. So Jason got to use his life experiences along with those on his team and harness his creativity to make this program all it could be. Thank God, Uncle SAM didn’t put it together. We’ve already seen how boring and ineffective our public school systems are.
The weekend went great after it was all said and done. I feel like the youth got a lot out of it. I really like all the materaial. It was real, it was interesting and it was fun. I wish I would have had a program like this in high school.
It was also good to have some small group time with the guys in my youth group. I talked to the high school guys and then the middle school guys. My whole philosophy on relationships as well in life is: “If you concentrate on the do’s, the don’t will almost always take care of themselves.” I mean seriously, think about it. If you concentrate on purity, waiting till marriage to have sex will take care of it’s self. If you concentrate on spending quality time together and engaging in healthy relationships, most of the temptations will weed themselves out. If you learn to appreciate the anticipation and not rush things, to take things slow and let love run it’s course, then your likely to have a stronger, more motivating, healthy relationship. I coined the phrase a while ago called, “Healthy growth”. If you focus your mind on real relationships, not only in love but in life, and you discipline yourself to surround yourself with people that will build you up and hold you accountable then you highly increase your chances of becoming a better person. Taking steps like these highly increase your chance of success.
Think about it, if you have surrounded yourself with people who eat right and work out and who hold you accountable for yuor actions then you will be a better person. You will WANT to go work out. You will WANT to eat healthy. You will engage in becoming the person you were meant to be. Your friends will call you out for being mediocre. It will be unacceptable for you to be anybody then the great person inside of you that is ready to come out.
Same goes with relationships. Surround yourself with people who will bring you up. Get advice from wise people who you would like to be like one day. Find the couple in your community that you always see with smile on there face and ask them to have you over for dinner and pick their brains. They must be doing something right.
In relationships we need to tunnel our vision to the do’s in our lives and not the don’ts.
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A day on the job
Today was one of those days when I was like, “This is my job…being Me.” I was attracted to the position here in Chattanooga because I wanted to do one more summer of service inside the Church before going full time into my passion of the business world. Don’t worry though, I’m not going to sell my soul to the man or conform to a cubicle or anything like that. I’m going to make the business world fun again, but that’s for another Blog.
Today I woke up around 8am. Today was a sleep in day. The past week I’ve been working out at 7am every morning and doing a devotional from 6am-7am and 8am-9am. Thursday is rest day so I decided to get a few extra hours of shut eye.
I got to church around nine and finished up planning some events for next week as well as finalizing all the games for VBS which was also next week.
Around noon one of the youth and I had planned to grab some grub and throw the frisbee around a little in Coolidge Park. I’m so thankful for locals who know all the cool places to go here, don’t know where I would be without them.
Matt and I left the church and walked about 3 miles (through the city across the bridge and down a hill) to Coolidge Park to throw the frisbee around. We tossed for about an hour and I must say, I am mighty impresses with the frisbee skills of this video game generation youth member. He was pretty good.
After frisbee we walk up the street to eat some grub. We stopped at Quiznos and I learned that my man had never experienced the beautiful art form that is a Quiznos Sub. I began to realize my calling to Chattanooga. Okay maybe God didn’t bring me here just to let Matt experience Quiznos (which in my opinion ranks right up there with salvation and stuff) but it was probably on his list. I’m pretty sure if God has franchises in Heaven, Quiznos will be one of them. I also learned today that it was the Quiznos Grand Opening for that particular store in Nooga. AND they are having by one get one free subs all of June! Now I understand what Jesus said when he prayed the kingdom come, “on earth as it is in Heaven”. Can you say blessing. Wow, talk about making my day. Okay enough about Quiznos.
Matt and I ate, then walked back to the church. We then picked up the grocery list and went shopping for this weekends retreat at Dogwood.
Spent a hundred and one dollars at Wal-Mart (I know, I didn’t think it was possible either) on fruit, juice and breakfast stuff.
A quick note about Tennessee: church’s don’t have to pay tax on anything the buy here. I showed the clerk at Wal-Mart the church’s form and BAM! Uncle Sam LOST! I could get used to that. I might just move here as a way of “sticking it to the man” everyday. I mean it’s not like Obama needs the money anyway, he’s just going to blow it, but this subject also is for another blog.
We unloaded it all to the kitchen when we got there. Fixed the fridge after we broke it and then took some strawberries and went for a hike where Matt showed me the rope swing. This rope swing will get well used by me this summer. Then we headed got back in the car, turned up some heavy medal and headed back home.
So there you have it! The day in the life of Colby Foster, the youth minister. I get to play frisbee, hang out with cool kids, eat Quiznos, discover rope swings and talk about Jesus! Does a college summer really get much better than that?
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First night as a youth minister.
Tonight was my first official night of being completely in charge of the youth. All of our youth members were scheduled to arrive at the church around 6 and we would hang out and program till around 7ish.
We had some students get here about 5:45 so we all went to the gym and tossed the football around. I’m not one for standing in a circle and throwing a ball back and forth so I quickly had to initiate some sort of competition. It turned into a game of 3 on 3 football with me as the all time QB. We had a good game going for a while. Soon enough though, six o’clock came and it was time to begin our programs.
This was the first Wednsday for the youth were everyone was finaaly done with school. I decided it would get a good idea to just chill out, play some games and have some fun. These guys had had enoughs books and exams for a while. It was time for summer!
Games, for one thing, are not my strong point. Don’t get me wrong, I am very very competitive and I love sports. I’m not the best in the world at preparing games though. If it were up to me, I would play dodge ball all night and maybe throw in some tackle football. This strategy however would not go over well with the group of middle school girls I have. So it was hard planning games that would be suitable for everyone to play and enjoy. I spent last summer running a day camp for children K-5 grade. I could make up any games and they would love it as long as it involved running or getting wet and screaming. Youth however are a totally different story. I couldn’t play the corny ice breaker games because they are too cool for that. I could play tackle football because only about two of them would last. So my options were pretty slim. If anybody out there has some suggestions on games to play with a group of middle and high school kids, please let me know.
I started off with a game called “hospital tag”. It’s like freeze tag except everyone is it and you get two chances before your out. The game went well but quickly got a old.
I then transitioned to a game called “Mr. Wolf”. It was pretty lame I’m not going to lie. It’s like a knock version of tag. That game lasted all of 5 minutes before I had kids texting during the game.
I proceed to the next game called 4 points. It is a game where everyone is in a group of 3. You make a finish line and and tell them they have to stay attached the whole time with only have 4 points touching the ground. Then you make it more challenging by allowing only 3 points and then 2. This game was by far my best idea. It made them work together and interact with each other while still competing.
I was all out of ideas at that point and resorted to the bread and butter of all PE classes…DODGEBALL. Dodgeball was a life-saver. Everyone loves dodgeball. It took no time to set up. Everyone already new the rules. They loved it. I loved it. It went great. Before I realized it, time was up and it was time to settle in the youth room and have some good conversations.
Since school had just let out and it was my first full session in charge I decided to keep it simple. We just went back to the youth room, chilled on the couches and cooled off. We had about 15 minutes left so I grab a piece of paper and ask everyone what they wanted to get out of the summer. I explained that games were not my strong point (they confirmed my statement with, “we could tell” looks) but that I was really excited and passionate about leading them in bible study and real life discussions this summer.
I ask them what they wanted to get out of the summer and wrote down there responses. It took a little warming up but I finally squeezed some responses out of them. I wrote down things from peer pressure and sexual temptation, to being together as a youth group and not having cliques to how to act like a Christian outside of church and not judging people. It was very fulfilling and I was deeply impressed by the openness and maturity of my youth group. They are an amazing group of students and I’m am looking forward to serving all of them this summer.
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This is a good video.
If you would like to know my response to this video, read the note I wrote on my facebook.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=693384506&v=app_2347471856
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Sunday
My first church service at First Baptist Chattanooga was coming up and I was ask to do the opening prayer. Apparently the opening prayer is not that big of a deal, but I couldn’t let them get off that easy. I had the vision for this prayer in the middle of the week one night while doing some journaling before bed (no, it was not some awesome super natural vision, it was just a couple of phrases that came in to my creative brain and then I went from there). It just kind of came to me and I felt like I needed to share it.
One of my favorite people to read about it in the church is John Wesley. Wesley once said that if they didn’t kick him out of town after he spoke, he wondered if he had really preached the gospel. So this presented an exciting challenge to live up to. Even though I was just doing a prayer, I figured it was still my job to raise some eyebrows and make people a little uncomfortable during Sunday morning. But it was my first Sunday so I had to throw a couple of laughs in there too. Also since I knew I might piss some people off I figured I would make a good first impression with the small town, conservative, southern congregation by wearing my best suit. HA! I’m not going to lie, I clean up pretty good, so even if I did make people mad their wives wouldn’t allow them to harm me.
As I sat in the front row with the other worship participates at the start of the service I was feeling pretty good. I was asking some questions about when I should walk up and the man beside me, Charlie, look over at me and said, “Don’t sweat too much about it man, nobody is going to remember it.” I looked at Charlie, winked and replied, “They’ll remember this one.” Then I proceeded up to the podium, pulled my sheet of paper out of my inside suit pocket and read aloud:
Thank you for Your Forgiveness
Lord Jesus, thank you for a beautiful day.
Thank you for the sunshine
Thank you for the rain.
Thank you for laughter and joy.
Thank you for smiles and cooking.
Thank you for fried chicken.
Thank you for family and friends, mischief and memories.
Thank you for true love
And for long walks on the beach with that special someone.
Thank you for a first kiss
And the rush that is gives.
Thank you for popcorn at the movies
Thank you for ice cream at the park.
Thank you for socks fresh out the dryer
And clean sheets right after a shower.
Thank you for chicken noodle soup.
Thank you for the grilled cheese sandwich
Thank you Lord for allowing us to fail.
Thank you Lord for our mothers that never let us forget anything.
Thank you Lord for the ability to laugh during a prayer.
We thank you most though for Your forgiveness.
Forgive us Lord for living luke warm lives.
Forgive us for our past and forgive us for our future.
Forgive us Lord for walking by that piece of trash on the ground and not picking it up.
Forgive us Lord for the food we throw away everyday.
Forgive us Lord for our consumerist society and over indulgence.
Forgive us Lord for racism, materialism and militarism.
Forgive us Lord for the 1,000 children who will die today during our worship service due to extreme poverty.
Forgive us Lord because less than one percent of what the world spends every year on weapons was needed to put every child around the world to school by the year 2000, and yet it never happened.
Forgive us Lord for our clothes made in sweatshops.
Forgive us Lord for not using our imagination and tapping into the beauty of your creativity.
And Lord forgive us for watching too much T.V.
We thank you Lord for your forgiveness.
We thank you Lord for your forgiveness.
….can you say crickets. My footsteps off the stage were echoing in the choir loft, that’s how quiet it was. Charlie gave me the, “I didn’t think you had it in ya kid, but well done, hell ofa job.” look. I took it as a compliment. Charlie is a heck of a man, with a great sense of humor.
I got a few weird looks after service. I also had around 10 people come up to me and thank me. I got a few notes this week wanting to have lunch and an email regarding thanks. I got a few laughs, and many hugs. But I didn’t get any mean remarks. I didn’t get any middle fingers, death threats and nobody has ask me for my resignation letter yet. So I’m wondering if I even preached the Gospel. I’m wondering if I even said anything right. If one of you could right me an angry note or something that would be great. That way i would know I said at least one thing right…even though it was just the opening prayer.
Oh I did forget one thing. haha, i did get called a libreal after service. My facebook status posted this, Sunday when I got to my computer:
A sweet old lady came up to me in church today after I got done speaking and said, “I agree with what you said about military spending and education. I just wanted you to know that I think the same thing. I’m glad to finally have another liberal in this church.” …..A liberal? I didn’t think you were allowed to say curse words in church!
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Interesting conversation.
- I remember hearing about an old comic strip back in the day. Two guys are talking to each other, and one of them says he has a question for God.
- He wants to ask why God allows all of this poverty and war and suffering to exist in the world. And his friend says, ‘Well, why don’t you ask?’
- The fellow shakes his head and says he is scared. When his friend asks why, he mutters, ‘I’m scared God will ask me the same question.’
