The Other Journal at Mars Hill Graduate School :: “With Sighs Too Deep for Words”: On Praying With the Victims in Haiti by Nathan R. Kerr

At the heart of all Christian prayer is the cry “Thy kingdom come!” It is with this cry that we move out into the action that speaks to God by waiting upon the free coming of God. It is with this cry that we speak to and for the coming again of Christ—that decisive action of God by which the powers and principalities of this world are to be subverted and creation is to be opened anew to its revolutionary transformation into new life. In prayer, we come to participate in this revolutionary transformation. Thus, Barth says, the action to which Christians are called by Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit is a specific kind of revolt.5 Specifically, the Christian prays in “revolt against all the oppression and suppression of humans by the lordship of the lordless powers,” against those powers that have gained their lordship by virtue of their refusal of humanity’s and creation’s relationship to God.6 At the same time, the Christian prayer of revolt is rooted in an equally specific kind of hope. The Christian acts against the lordship of the lordless powers not so as to win her own freedom from their rule (as if by some equally autonomous power), but rather in the recognition that she has been implicated in a struggle that refuses their rule as false and illusory, in recognition that she has already been liberated from their rule in the original revolution of Christ’s cross and resurrection.7 For Christians to cry, “Thy kingdom come!” in revolt against the lordless powers is to act “in the sphere of freedom” from the powers which “is already given to them here and now on this side of the fulfillment of the prayer.”89 Prayer, Barth is saying, should make revolutionaries of us all. Indeed, what kind of an invocation of God’s kingdom would it be if it did not testify through specific ways of working and living and loving to the path through and out from under the lordless powers—cosmic, political, and religious alike—that enslave the powerless poor by presuming to deny the resurrection of the crucified?

And yet, we must be clear: such prayer, such living and working and loving, is born out of, not apart from, the crucible of lived solidarity with those victims who have been rendered powerless by these lordless powers. Whatever else we might say about the geological causes and the religious significance of the January 12 earthquake, surely we must resist any interpretation of this event—either as mere cosmic chance or as the outworking of some inscrutable divine will—that refuses ways of living and working with the Haitian that affirm again the goodness of creation. It may be groaning in enslavement to powers hostile to God, but creation is nevertheless there to be received anew as gift and sign of God’s coming new creation. Whatever else we might say about the impoverished working conditions, crippled health-care system, and gross economic oppression of the Haitian people that this tragic event has made all the more apparent, surely we must resist any benevolent posturing that presumes to offer economic and medical aid while leaving these exploitative structures in place. Whatever else we might say about the covert political alliances that have suppressed Haitian democracy, limited Haitian immigration to the United States, and curtailed Haitian economic “growth” for the sake of the increased wealth of the Western international superpowers, surely we must resist any sloganeering cries for equal rights and economic development that leave unchallenged the hegemonic politics of the West whose ideology creates the very space for such sloganeering.

If this is what solidarity with the oppressed and victimized Haitian people calls us to resist, to revolt against, what then, one might ask, are those ways of living and working and loving that constitute the “obedient human action” of one who prays, “Thy kingdom come”? To begin with, we shall have to be obedient to the command of God to go—to be with these people, indeed, to live with these people and to have these people live with us (whether permanently or for a time). We must be willing to work with these people and to love these concretely broken bodies (the immense significance of the word concrete here does not escape me) and this specific space of broken earth. And as we go, we shall have to ask how to receive again the goodness of creation by rediscovering a distinctively liturgical agrarianism for a people whose population is 75 percent rural. As we go, we shall have to ask what kinds of economic and business ventures promote healthy and faithful city dwelling in the midst of Haiti’s now-impoverished urban centers. As we go, we shall have to ask what kinds of living and loving and working together will continue to feed and clothe the illegal Haitian immigrants when, in eighteen months, their temporary asylums have expired.

via theotherjournal.com

I love this essay on Haiti and prayer. This excerpt is only a small piece. If you have time -- it's worth reading in its entirety.

CPX: Debriefing

Our first week at CPx was filled with lots of ground work to set up the coming days, weeks and months. One of the first things we did was talk debriefing. Debriefing is the act of coming together as a group (or personally if you are the journalling type) and actively talking about something (it could be anything) that you walked through. Some might call it an art form as it involves mulling over the events and their associated thoughts and emotions to connect them in such a way that you grow and learn from the experience.

It’s something I’ve actively done on mission trips in the past but haven’t been as adept at applying it more generally. It does have application though and can be a great tool to process life and everything within it. It also does have a Biblical basis; the narrative underlying the first portion of Luke 10 is just one example of this. In it, Jesus sends 72 disciples out in pairs to visit villages, find people of peace and bring the Kingdom of heaven to their doorsteps. He then also calls them back to Himself and has them report on what they saw and felt. In any case, I think debriefing is a practical tool to help process through whatever life throws at a person.

We were taught two different models: the BASIC model and the AI model.

The BASIC model, as the name implies, is pretty straightforward (not that the AI method isn’t). It involves asking yourself and others 4 simple questions:

  1. What did you see happen?
  2. What did you feel?
  3. What did you learn?
  4. What is God saying in the midst of this event?

As I said, there isn’t much to it. The AI method, I think, is a bit more nuanced and attempts to more directly connect past or current behavior and thoughts with what you’ll do in the future.

AI stands for Appreciative Inquiry. The AI method attempts to put the focus specifically on what God is doing rather than on what our enemy has done or might be trying to do. In this way it actively seeks to map the movement of God rather than the movement of the devil (generally speaking, it is always healthier and better to map God rather than the devil). It too consists of 4 similar questions.

  1. What made your heart come alive (or phrased differently, what was most life giving or energizing)?
  2. Why is it like that?
  3. What would you change about your experience or what do you wish would have happened?
  4. What are you going to do next time?

The first question seeks to get at the heart of the experience, connecting your passions with what actually happened, regardless of how loose those connections might be. It gets you talking and thinking and feeling the experience in such a way that perhaps connections you didn’t originally see become visible. For example, I am going to consider this question in the light of what I saw and felt upon first seeing extreme poverty several years ago. At that time I had no clue how to process what I was seeing and I (unfortunately) locked those thoughts and feelings away for a good long while where they just festered. Had I been actively looking for what made my heart alive in that circumstance — praying for the TB patients, providing running water to a family without it, seeing the joy in a child’s eyes as he learned to walk — I could have begun to process the passions in my own heart and come up with something of a response. Alas, hindsight is always 20/20 and doesn’t really matter that much now — the processing eventually got done.

The second question gets at the specific values behind the experiences brought up by question one. It places those experiences in the broader context of our life and God’s design.

The third and fourth questions are similar and begin to connect the experience and value to growth. The third question examines specifically what you wished would have happened and what you would change, if you had a chance to do it all over. The fourth actively presses you to think about the next time you might be faced with that or a similar situation and let what you learned mature your response.

So debriefing. I have this inkling of a suspicion that we are going to be doing a lot of this foreseeable future. But that’s OK. I think it’s supposed to be like that. After all, at some level it sounds an awful lot like what discipleship is supposed to be all about.

Whoever Said Short Term Trips Were A Waste of TIme?

I’ve often heard it said that short term trips are a waste of time. Some claim that those on them just tend to “get in the way” by distracting long-term missionaries from their mission, whatever it might be. Others have said it’s an excuse for comfortable Christians to take a “vacation” while masquerading as mission focused individuals. Other people tend to make up other stories and excuses too.

I don’t buy it though.

I mean, sometimes it might be true. There are times I wonder with some of the trips I’ve heard about in my days. You’ve probably heard of those I’m talking about too — the ones that sound like wild and crazy adventures that might include a bit of evangelism (or might not). But by and large I think many times when we pull out the “waste of time” card, we do so erroneously.

So why do I say this?

The biggest reason is the overwhelming amount of evidence that lives are forever changed by short term teams. My church in the states, for example, has sent short term teams to Cape Town, South Africa the past 3 US summers (it’s actually winter then in Cape Town). On those trips we saw God move in many incredible ways. Lots of people professed HIS name for the first time. Many of those (and others) were healed of infirmities as serious as TB. Still others saw God move into their lives in ways they have never experienced before.

On those trips, we worked in a particular township called Masiphumelele (Masi for short). And if you are reading this blog, you likely know that my wife and I are currently in cross cultural church planting school called CPx which started a week ago. We were so encouraged upon arriving to find out that their are 3 people from Masi actually in CPx! One woman was led to Christ by a few women on our short term trip 2 summers ago. The other two also have less direct but ties none the less to our short term trips. And it’s so exciting to see that fruit matured and so encouraging to know that God can and will mightily use short term trips. They aren’t just sightseeing ventures for Christians and definitely will, when walked out in the right attitude, radically affect the kingdom.

There are other readily apparent benefits too. Short term trips can do wonders to encourage long term missionaries. They can allow for a more targeted, direct and focus mission that might normally take a long term team a while to get into. They often can allow long term workers to rest for a period (particularly in the case of the AIDs orphanage I worked with 3 summers ago). And they often allow for individuals with specialized skills to briefly provide services to those that might need them.

I’m definitely for short term mission trips and encourage everyone to go on one at some point in their life. If you are looking for a place to go — I heartily recommend Cape Town, especially after the World Cup finishes in July.

A Wealthy Life?

I find the prosperity gospel to be most objectionable. The idea that God wants us to be self absorbed — focused on our own health, wealth and western ideals of prosperity — has done more to harm the kingdom of God than build it up. It also directly contradicts Biblical, particularly New Testament, notions of kingdom living.

I was reminded this once again while reading on the plane. I started reading Luke again but before jumping into the text, I asked for God to highlight simple things that I’d missed before. One of those dealt specifically with our false notions of prosperity and kingdom living. It comes specifically from Luke 5 and is the story of Jesus and the fishermen.


3 He got into5 one of the boats, which was Simon’s, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then Jesus sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. 4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and lower your nets for a catch.” 5 Simon answered, “Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing! But at your word I will lower the nets.” 6 When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets started to tear. 7 So they motioned to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they were about to sink. 8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” 9 For Peter and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken, 10 and so were James and John, Zebedee’s sons, who were Simon’s business partners. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” 11 So when they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.


Here is something amazing. Jesus is traveling with these fisherman and teaches some from their boat. What exactly — we don’t know. We could probably guess a little bit — it seems that often Jesus taught about what the kingdom of God is like, through parables and stories and simple truths, like in the sermons on the mount and plains. He often spoke of an alternative lifestyle — one lived in a subversive opposition to the dominant culture.

And here are these fishermen. They first recognized that in Jesus, there was someone worth listening to. Even though they had been out fishing all night with nothing to show for their hard work, they were willing to take Jesus at His word. When He said, ”Lower your nets” they did, and to their amazement caught more fish than they likely had ever seen at one given time. They even had to call another boat over to hold all of the excess. For these fishermen, this likely represented an enormous wealth such that they didn’t often come across.

For us in the states, more often than not it seems that this would have been the end of the story. God is supposed to bless us with wealth beyond measure. It’s an expectation to live and walk in. And sadly this satisfies us. So often we leave it at that (wealth accumulation as outward sign of blessing) and ignore the greater truth of what abundance and wealth truly is.

Thankfully though for Simon Peter and his business partners, this wasn’t a sufficient end to the story. They are amazed at the wealth but more amazed with Jesus. Jesus’ abundance immediately draws attention to their deficiency. But not the deficiency of their pocketbooks — the deficiency of their hearts.

And what they did next is truly amazing. As soon as they got to shore they left all of that new found wealth behind (as well as everything else that they had) to follow Jesus. The wealth truly didn’t matter a single bit when contrasted with Jesus (the source of all our life). Worldly wealth pales in comparison with the wealth of a heart filled with His kingdom.

The Sermon I Preached in DC on Jan 3rd

It was my first time preaching and to a crowd of 165 at that. It went over really well (yay!). Also great to have the encouragement of one of my groomsmen (Neal Foster) in the audience. Family kind of has to tell you good job but he I can trust to be honest. And I'm not going to lie, it felt kind of good being able to preach successfully in front of folks with seminary degrees.

It's also weird to think that I'm listed on http://www.sermon.net now. You never quite know how life is going to work out.

A New Kind of Christmas Carol


This is war like you ain’t seen. This winter’s long, it’s cold and mean. With hangdog hearts we stood condemned, But the tide turns now at Bethlehem.

This is war and born tonight, The Word as flesh, the Lord of Light, The Son of God, the low-born king; Who demons fear, of whom angels sing.

This is war on sin and death; The dark will take it’s final breath. It shakes the earth, confounds all plans; The mystery of God as man.

This is War by Dustin Kensrue

Incarnation as Model for Mission

This is the text of what I taught at HouseChurch this past Sunday. Juli and I will likely be giving an updated version to a Sunday School in San Antonio on Dec. 20th. If you are in SA, come check us out!


1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was fully God. 1:2 The Word was with God in the beginning. 1:3 All things were created by him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created. 1:4 In him was life, and the life was the light of mankind. 1:5 And the light shines on in the darkness, but the darkness has not mastered it.

1:14 Now the Word became flesh and took up residence among us. We saw his glory – the glory of the one and only, full of grace and truth, who came from the Father.

1:18 No one has ever seen God. The only one, himself God, who is in closest fellowship with the Father, has made God known.

John 1:1-5; 14; 18


It’s Christmas time and generally in church we talk about the birth of Jesus and all that surrounded it. I want to do that here too, but from a slightly different angle; this is something that kind of has to be done if you are using John as your primary Christmas text. You see, John starts out with a completely different Christmas story than Matthew or Luke. Instead of the details of the events surrounding the Nativity scene (including wise men and shepherds and a baby in a manger) we get a wholly different view of Jesus and His entrance into the world. In much the same way Genesis 1 poetically describes GOD imaginatively creating this world, here in John we are given a picture of GOD imaginatively entering into it.

The first few verses of John make is abundantly clear who Jesus is — He is the Word — the LOGOS — who has always been with GOD and who actually is GOD. Not only that — it is by this WORD that all things, all of us, everything we see — hear — feel — were created.

The parallel of these first few verses with Genesis is also quite important (and intriguing). In these verses, we have a deconstruction of the creation event, giving more details to the original story and hinting that something new and different is happening. We immediately come to find the power in GOD’s words at the beginning of time, “Let there be light!” This power is the move of Jesus into our world and it connects immediately what was (creation and history pre-Jesus) with what will be (Jesus bodily arriving as the inaugural event of the coming Kingdom of God).

This is important to keep in mind; we see throughout the Old Testament GOD’s desire to be in relation with people. He walks and talks with Adam and Eve in the garden. He covenants with Abraham. He wrestles with Jacob. He divinely intervenes upon hearing the cries of His oppressed people in Egypt. He fights on their side against the Godless. He identifies one of our heart’s (David’s) with His own. He loves them enough to send messengers to direct their footpaths back to Him. GOD desires a people to call His own, who number as the stars in the sky, and live righteous and just lives before Him.

Looking back to John, and its parallels to our beginnings, it’s GOD as written word that first comes to the Israelites in the form of the law. This didn’t have the desired affect of creating a nation centered around GOD, living righteously and justly before Him. It certainly produced knowledge of sin (Romans 3:20-25) but not life and the people He desired.

His people continued to live selfish lives centered on themselves, missing entirely the spirit of the WORD of GOD for its letter. GOD in WORD only and not flesh was not having the desired affect. Something else had to be done. The mission of GOD, carried out through His WORD acted out via His people was not sufficient.

And this is the part we get back to one of the most excited verses in John (at least to my ears). John continues on with his narrative of the creation event saying that the WORD became flesh. GOD, in the person of Jesus, was moving into our neighborhood. We were finally able to see the glory of GOD with our own eyes. No longer was His presence restricted to a temple or His WORD to a confining — not freeing — law.

This truly was (and still is) a radical change. John tells us that know one ever before had truly seen GOD; in the past people have glimpsed His glory but no one has truly seen Him. The shadow we’d known was coming into clear focus in the person of Jesus — God made flesh.

It’s so exciting to think that in doing this GOD changed the course of history forever. GOD’s mission had a new central expression: incarnation — becoming flesh — moving in with us — being one of us.

A natural question that stems from this is “How does the incarnation — God becoming flesh — affect the ministry of Jesus?” It’s easy for me to say that incarnation is a new expression but if it doesn’t have any affect than it really shouldn’t matter to us. There are two specific affects, thought, that build upon each other and are worth exploring now.

The first affect of the incarnation on the ministry of Jesus is that it made GOD Radically present among His people. No longer did He have to speak through priests and prophets. No longer was His presence confined to one room of a temple. He was actually one of them, living how they lived and doing what they did. For the first 30 years of His life in fact, He blended into the culture.

The second affect builds from the first one. Because Jesus was radically present, He was able to clearly speak directly to the needs of the people. This isn’t to say that before Jesus, GOD didn’t know their needs and didn’t intervene on their behalf or make Himself known; the OT is rife with examples of God meeting the needs of His people. Rather, the lack of distance and religion, and the creation of a relationship, allowed Jesus to directly speak into the hearts of people. No longer was approaching GOD a systematic, religious act but an actually encounter with a living, breathing person that spoke and acted and talked as one of them. The people who believed knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that GOD in Jesus was seeing the deficiency of their lives, specifically where they lacked HIM, and Jesus could directly fill them with His life.

So why should the incarnation and its affect on the ministry of Jesus matter to us? Primarily because Jesus demands incarnation of His follower. John 17:18 says, “Just as you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world.” This is in a prayer of Jesus to His Father about His disciples in which He goes on to include all that believe in Him throughout the ages.

And this might seem scary and hard. We aren’t GOD and we aren’t magically going to be born into a new culture. So how do we go about incarnational mission? Their are some keys to this which lay in an important passage of Paul but first it’s important to discuss the starting point.

To that end, it starts with God and His work in us, of course. John 20:21 reiterates that His people are to be sent people, living in the world as Jesus lived in the Jewish world. It goes on to say that Jesus breathed onto them and they received the Holy Spirit. God is forever our only source for anything we do, particular for that which is done in accordance with His mission. His Holy Spirit, living within us is a must and the source of any “power”, “ability”, “wisdom”, or “knowledge” that we may have.

And Paul goes on to lay out how Jesus did it and how we can follow Him in it:


You should have the same attitude toward one another that Christ Jesus had, 2:6 who though he existed in the form of God did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, 2:7 but emptied himself by taking on the form of a slave, by looking like other men, and by sharing in human nature. 2:8 He humbled himself, by becoming obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross! 2:9 As a result God exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, 2:10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow – in heaven and on earth and under the earth – 2:11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Phil. 2:5-11


It starts with an emptying of ourselves. We must be willing to give up all that we are and take on all that Jesus was, sharing in His emptying of Himself to become human. This means getting rid of our own modes of classification. It ceases to be an us/them thing, becoming only us. It ceases to be about our culture versus theirs, instead letting Jesus bleed into the cracks of theirs. Economics no longer matter. Skill or intelligences ceases to be a deal. Even Gender ceases to be a big issue. Incarnation levels the playing field so that God can meet people wherever they are at.

It also means an attitude of service. Paul says Jesus took on the form of a slave and the gospels detail clearly His service to those all around Him. He washed His disciples feet, healed the sick, forgave sins and fed miraculous amounts of food to extremely large crowds. Everything He did and everything He shared was done in an attitude of service to the people He was born into and loved.

He was also obedient to the point of death on a cross. Obedience characterized His mission. John says obedience starts with the Son doing as the Father does (5:19;30) and that Jesus did what pleased the Father (8:28). It goes that we should do the same. And it’s got to be something we are so sold out in that we are willing to even, as Jesus did, give our lives to it.

And there we have an admittedly brief look at the incarnational mission of Jesus and how we are called to participate in it. It leaves me with a few questions worth reflecting on:

  1. For starters it’s worth asking, “am I obeying Jesus and walking in His mission?” It’s not just something that people are called to do by moving overseas. In most cases, at least at the beginning of our walks with Jesus, we don’t need any other calling than that Jesus said “do it”. There are people and groups and cultures all around us that need Jesus and need someone to actually be Him where they are at. Think of your workplace. Or your school. The cool, local coffee shop. Perhaps the local homeless shelter or the street or apartment complex you live in. We are surrounded by people everyday that need Jesus’ love just as much as you do.

  2. If you are walking in His mission, is there a group of people you are particularly called to? It could be someplace or community you find yourself regularly involved in now.

  3. And finally, if so how are you (or how could you be) incarnating Jesus into the lives of these people?

World AIDs Day: Hope in a Broken World

Today is World’s AIDs Day — a day set aside specifically to raise awareness and support for the 33 million people living, and dying, with it. It’s a disease that is literally tearing through the developing world at an alarming rate and it’s one that we don’t yet have an affordable, easily reproduced and highly available cure for yet. In 2007, it was reported that 5.7 million people in South Africa had HIV/AIDs; 22.4 million have it in all of sub-saharan Africa. To add, several million more are being infected yearly and more than 14 million kids are orphaned because of it.

Hopefully those stats are humbling enough to make you want to do something. Truthfully, there’s so much that needs doing; Education, medical research and care, funding and raising awareness here are just a few of the things we can play a part in. It’s not a situation that bares no hope regardless of how dire it may seem. Research is advancing — there are groups that seem to be ever closer to a vaccine and just this past May it was reported that a German group actually successfully cured AIDs in a stem cell transplant procedure; the patient has now been HIV free for 2 years. An end is in site.

And until that end — a highly available cure and/or vaccine — is fully seen, I can take some hope knowing I serve a GOD bigger than any disease, no matter how scary it may seem. One of the most moving stories of Juli and I’s time in Cape Town this past May was meeting Angela, an 18 year old woman lying on her death bed in Masi. She had AIDs and was dying of TB; hospice had sent her home, not giving her much time at all. When we first met her, she couldn’t move or doing anything for herself. We told her about a man, GOD’s son, who loved her so much and was here for her now and always. We told her about HIS kingdom and how it differs from ours (which is broken by sin and decay and death). And we cried out to GOD there with her.

It’s still amazing to me how GOD heals and comforts and restores those that come to Him. I see this throughout the Gospels especially, as Jesus walked through life. It’s not always how I expect it and it’s not always how I might want it but above all of this and my limited expectations God is now and always faithful. That hasn’t, and won’t ever, change.

Anyways, back to Angela. Many in our rather large group got to see and meet her throughout our trip. She had such a hunger for Jesus. And an amazing thing was happening — by the end of the trip she was easily talking and she could feed and bathe and clothe herself and even briefly make it out of bed. She was supposed to be getting weaker and weaker until she died and here she was getting stronger.

We left after two weeks but left her in the hands of the long term missionaries to continue discipling her. About a month after we had left, some of the long termers visited her and after hearing complaints of pain, took her to the hospital. She was tested and after some time the doctor came back and said, “I know why you are having this pain. The medication is so harsh and is treating something you don’t have and is causing it. In your x-rays and blood work you show know signs of TB! I don’t understand it but there it is.”

She and the long termers and us when the told us celebrated our GOD’s strength and compassion — He’d taken away this young woman’s disease and healed her at least of that. Several months later the doctors called her back in for another test as they just couldn’t believe the results. They showed the same thing — no TB. She was baptized rejoicing the day, knowing hope that sees Jesus’ kingdom breaking through here and now and knowing how it changed her (not just the healing) and how it can change others.

It will be a wonderful day when we all have vaccines and cures and successful treatments for blights such as AIDs. But more than that though I have hope knowing that there is kingdom where none of these blights even exist and it breaks through occasionally into our broken kingdom and it is bringing with it hope and change through the redemptive power of Jesus.