a big wheel Christmas

In September of 1960, I woke up one morning with six hungry babies and just 75 cents in my pocket. Their father was gone. The boys ranged from three months to seven years; their sister was two. Their Dad had never been much more than a presence they feared. Whenever they heard his tires crunch on the gravel driveway they would scramble to hide under their beds. He did manage to leave $15 a week to buy groceries.

Now that he had decided to leave, there would be no more beatings, but no food either. If there was a welfare system in effect in southern Indiana at that time, I certainly knew nothing about it. I scrubbed the kids until they looked brand new and then put on my best homemade dress, loaded them into the rusty old 51 Chevy and drove off to find a job. The seven of us went to every factory, store and restaurant in our small town. No luck. The kids stayed crammed into the car and tried to be quiet while I did my best to convince whoever would listen that I was willing to learn or do anything. I had to have a job. Still no luck.

The last place we went to, just a few miles out of town, was an old Root Beer Barrel drive-in that had been converted to a truck stop. It was called the Big Wheel. An old lady named Granny owned the place and she peeked out of the window from time to time at all those kids. She needed someone on the graveyard shift, 11:00 PM until 7:00 AM. She paid 65 cents an hour, and I could start that night.

I raced home and called the teenager down the street that babysat for people. I bargained with her to come and sleep on my sofa for a dollar a night. She could arrive with her pajamas on and the kids would already be asleep. This seemed like a good arrangement to her, so we made a deal.

That night when the little ones and I knelt to say our prayers, we all thanked God for finding Mommy a job. And so I started at the Big Wheel. When I got home in the mornings I woke the baby-sitter up and sent her home with one dollar of my tip money - half of what I averaged every night.

As the weeks went by, heating bills added a strain to my meager wage. The tires on the old Chevy had the consistency of penny balloons and began to leak. I had to fill them with air every night on the way to work and again every morning before I could go home. One bleak fall morning, I dragged myself to the car to go home and found four tires in the back seat. New tires! There was no note, no nothing, just those beautiful, brand new tires. "Had angels taken up residence in Indiana?" I wondered. I made a deal with the local service station. In exchange for his mounting the new tires, I would clean up his office. I remember it took me a lot longer to scrub his floor than it did for him to do the tires.

I was now working six nights instead of five and it still wasn't enough. Christmas was coming and I knew there would be no money for toys for the kids. I found a can of red paint and started repairing and painting some old toys. Then I hid them in the basement so there would be something on Christmas morning. Clothes were a worry too. I was sewing patches on top of patches on the boys' pants and soon they would be too far gone to repair.

On Christmas Eve the usual customers were drinking coffee in the Big Wheel. There were the truckers, Les, Frank and Jim, and a state trooper named Joe. A few musicians were hanging around after a gig at the Legion and were dropping nickels in the pinball machine. The regulars all just sat around and talked through the wee hours of the morning and finally left before the sun came up.

When it was time for me to go home at 7:00 AM on Christmas morning, to my amazement, my old, battered Chevy was filled full to the top with boxes of all shapes and sizes. I quickly opened the driver's side door, crawled inside and kneeled in the front facing the back seat. Reaching back, I pulled the lid off the top box. Inside was a whole case of little blue jeans, sizes 2-10! I looked inside another box: it was full of shirts to go with the jeans. Then I peeked inside some of the other boxes: candy and nuts and bananas and bags of groceries. There was an enormous ham for baking, canned vegetables and potatoes. There was pudding and Jell-O and cookies, cakes and pie filling and flour. There was a whole bag of laundry supplies and cleaning items. And, in the last box, there were five toy trucks and one beautiful little doll.

As I drove back through empty streets, the sun slowly rose on the most amazing Christmas Day of my life. I was sobbing with gratitude. And I will never forget the joy on the faces of my little ones that precious morning.

Yes, there were angels in Indiana that long-ago December. And they all hung out at the Big Wheel truck stop.

Jesus and the snow geese

There once was a man who didn't believe in God. And he didn't hesitate to let others know how he felt about faith and religious holidays, like Christmas. His wife, however, did believe. And despite his disparaging comments, she raised their children to also have faith in God and His Son, Jesus.

One snowy December 24th, his wife was taking their children to a Christmas Eve service at the small community church. She asked him to come, but he refused. "That story is nonsense!" he said. "If there is a God, why would He lower Himself and come to Earth as a man? That's ridiculous!" So she and the children left while he stayed home.

A bit later, the winds grew stronger and the snow turned into a blizzard. As the man looked out the window, all he saw was white - a blinding snowstorm. He sat down to relax before the fire for the evening when he heard a loud thump. Something had hit the window. Then another thump and another. He looked out again, but still couldn't see more than a few feet. When the snow let up a little, he ventured outside to see what could have been beating on his window. In the field near his house, he saw a flock of wild snow geese.

Apparently they had been flying south for the winter when they got caught in the snowstorm and couldn't go on. They were lost and stranded on his farm, with no food or shelter. They just flapped their wings and flew around the field in low circles blindly and aimlessly. A few of them had flown into his window, it seemed. The man felt sorry for these poor, beautiful creatures and wanted to help them. The barn would be a great place for them to stay, he thought. It is warm and safe; surely they could spend the night and wait out the storm.

He walked over to the barn and opened the doors wide, then watched and waited, hoping they would notice the open barn and go inside. But the geese just fluttered around aimlessly and did not seem to notice the barn or realize what it could mean for them. The man tried to get their attention, but that just seemed to scare them and they moved further away. He went into the house and came back out with some bread, broke it up, and made a trail of crumbs leading to the barn. They still didn't catch on.

Now he was getting frustrated. He got behind them and tried to shoo them toward the barn, but they only got more scared and scattered in every direction except toward the barn. Nothing he did could get them to enter the only safe and warm place around. "Why don't they follow me?!" he exclaimed. "Can't they see this is the only place where they can survive the storm?" Suddenly it dawned on him that they simply wouldn't follow a human. "If only I were a goose," he thought out loud, "then I could save them." Suddenly he had an idea.

He went into the barn and got one of his own geese. Carrying it in his arms, he circled around behind the flock of wild geese and carefully released it. His goose flew through the flock and straight into the barn. One by one the other geese followed it to safety. He stood silently for a moment as the words he had spoken a few minutes earlier replayed in his mind: "If only I were a goose, then I could save them!"

The prideful words he uttered to his wife just a couple hours ago came back like a punch in the chest. "If there is a God, why would He lower Himself and come to Earth as a man? That's ridiculous!" At that moment, for the very first time, Christmas made sense. We were lost and blind and dying. In the person of Jesus Christ, though, we finally had One to walk among us and show us the way.

As the winds died down and the blinding snow settled to the ground, the man's soul became quiet. He pondered this wonderful thought. Years of doubt and disbelief vanished like the passing storm. He fell to his knees in the snow and whispered his very first prayer: "Thank You, God, for coming in human form to show me the way!"

please remember

This is my favorite time of the year! I absolutely love Christmas. In fact, I’ve been known to break out the Christmas spirit (including music!) as early as September. I get caught up in the cold weather, the real Christmas tree and all the trouble it is to decorate, the garland and bows on the front porch, the wrapping of presents… It’s all just so beautiful and satisfying.

But, in a very sad way, this is also one of the most depressing times of the year! To a degree, I absolutely dread Christmas. Making the lists and then checking stuff off can be expensive and infuriating. Dealing with all the crazed shoppers is a scary task. So many people feel desperately lonely and sad. And all of us tend to forget what this glorious, national holiday is all about.

I honestly wonder what Jesus thinks of our American Christmas celebration. It’s full of parties, children’s musicals and gift giving, but does that matter? We busy ourselves with buying, spending and traveling, but is that what it’s all about? Please don’t misunderstand me. I do all of that too and even enjoy most of it, but it grieves me to know that we so quickly forget.

We forget that God created this spinning blue dot in the universe, formed our bodies from the dust and has numbered the hairs of our head. We forget that He joyfully chose to come to us as a human. We forget that Jesus’ entire earthly existence was an example of how to love, live and lead. We forget that Christmas can (and maybe should) be celebrated without the gifts, lights, trees, parties, movies, music, etc.

This year I want to remember. Remember what it’s all about. Focus on the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Center myself on His love for this sinful, evil world. Consider the fact that a tiny baby, born in a barn some 2000 years ago, transformed our world forever. This year I want to remember. And I want you too as well.

I’m not sure what you can/should do to remember. Different people do different things. My family has always had a tradition of reading the Christmas story together on Christmas morning. We end with the part about the wise men and their three gifts, then we give our little boy three (fairly inexpensive) gifts. Some families offer themselves in service of some kind to those less fortunate (i.e. serving in a soup kitchen, passing out gifts, etc.) A lot of churches have communion and/or prayer services to reflect upon. There are hundreds of creative and practical things we can do to curb this horrible tendency toward forgetfulness.

Please remember! God, help me remember. I’m going to give and receive gifts this year, but that’s not what it’s about. Help me remember that. We have a beautiful tree and lovely decorations again, but that’s not what it’s about. We’re going to travel a long way to see family, eat delicious food, listen to great music, go to worship services, etc., but even that is not what it’s about. Please, Lord, help us remember You. May all the traditions, every song and movie, all the family gatherings and stories, may it all reflect and remind and highlight You, Lord. And may we rediscover Your love for the world as a whole and for us as individuals. We love You too, Jesus! We love You too!

Holy Seed summarized

I can see it. I get it. I understand. But maybe because it’s been inside me for so long. I’ve had a long time to chew on it. And I know Carla gets it too. But that’s probably because I never stop talking about it. I’m always talking about and relating it to something else. For the rest of the world, though, that’s not the case. The whole concept is still pretty new. So, in an attempt to make sense out of a very broad and huge vision, I’m making a stab at it. I’m attempting to connect all the dots and tie it all together in a clear and concise way. This is what Holy Seed Community Church is all about.

For months and months, every time we gathered together, we talked about our core values. There are twelve (12) of them total, but they really fit within the framework of our three-fold mission. They help explain the mission. They describe the kind of atmosphere we’re trying to create and exist in. The danger in listing them is that it will just be a list. In reality and in practice, they are much more than a collection of buzz words. They are deeply held, primal beliefs. They are foundational to the way we relate to Jesus and to our culture. You can, of course, read more about each core value individually, but, as a group, here’s how they stack up within our three-fold mission of loving, living and leading like Jesus.

Loving like Jesus feels like:

• Community
• Grace
• Trust
• Worship

Living like Jesus feels like:

• Faithfulness
• Authenticity
• Transparency
• Stewardship

Leading like Jesus feels like:

• Creativity
• Unity
• Intentionality
• Family

Those core values are like the soil in which we grow. They keep us rooted and nourished so we remain healthy and strong. Our mission would flounder and feel very “pie-in-the-sky” without them. With them, though, our mission has power and influence. They make the mission real. They make it stick. They are necessary because the mission, by itself, is huge and unattainable.

Loving, living and leading like Jesus…that’s why we exist. That is our enormous mission from God. I liken it to a relational journey. You never know exactly where you’re going or who you’re going to meet. At times it’s a profoundly pleasurable experience. At other times it drives you to the brink of a nervous breakdown. And there is always deep mystery involved. We try to figure it all out and systematize everything, but deep down we know that’s impossible. We constantly mess up, take a wrong exit, misread a situation and/or hit the brakes. In the end, though, we press on because we have vision. We see something we want or need, something that’s right, good and pure. We push through all the pain and break through every wall because we know that it’s worth it all…in the end.

Holy Seed pushes through, presses on and perseveres because we were given a vision. God allowed us to see what could and should be. Our vision has not been turned into reality yet, but it will be someday. That’s why we were sent on the mission—to achieve the vision. And that’s why we hold so deeply to the core values—to fulfill the mission. But it all boils down to the beautiful, God-given vision. Vision will always be the bottom line. In our heads and in our hearts we can see it. When our imaginations are loosed, this is what we picture. When we dream, this is what it looks like.

• a swarm of individuals on mission every day in their homes, at the office, supermarket, coffee shop, etc
• a generation of children who know and follow the Godly example of their parents
• a group of husbands and wives whose marriages exemplify what it means to love and honor each other
• a host of families that are a beacon of hope and service to each other, their friends and their neighbors
• a network of churches throughout greater Seattle that work together for one purpose
• a unified people group whose art and passions are reflective of their Creator
• a whole city that cares more about holiness than happiness

Can you see it yet? Perhaps God’s dream is becoming your dream too? Our prayer is that others will catch this vision, join our mission, and hold to these core values. We honestly believe if that happens, the vision will become the reality.