Welcome to my ongoing series on prayer walking and discovering God in the wildly diverse city of Chicago!

I’m not doing this alone - there is a collaborative effort underway to encourage city street prayer walking and discovery with church planters, churches, and college students all across the city. Find our wiki here.

Chicago is a mission field, it is our mission field.

There are 77 recognized community areas in the city, making it one of the most glocal, ethnically diverse, and contrasted cities in the world. The people of Chicago are fiercely loyal to their ‘hood and many (though they live in a global city) rarely leave the boundaries of their blocks for another part of town.

My hopes are to make good use of my CTA Chicago card; using buses and trains to travel to and in these different communities. I will do my best to write reflections on what I saw, felt, and heard from God as I navigate through the city. My assumption is that God is already at work in their neighborhoods (in bars, churches, and city streets), and a missionary’s job is to find him and point him out for others to see. My centering prayer will come from Luke 10, asking God our Father, the Lord of the Harvest, to raise up workers in the desperate harvest field of that particular neighborhood.

With so many villages to pray through, (there are 77 recognized areas, but most maps draw up about 237 neighborhoods), I’m thinking I may also look for teammates in this work, and start a collaborative project to draw out a complete “spiritual map” of the city. If you are a church planter in Chicago or would like to work on this with me, please email me (see “Contact Us” on this blog’s sidebar).

Why spend so much energy on this project? My firm belief is that first and foremost God’s people depend on God through prayer. If there is to be a church planting movement with lives transformed and the gospel proclaimed afresh, it will come through a prayer movement. One that has its ear close to the ground, to see what God is doing in the streets.

This will be sort of a “live” post, meaning I’ll be updating it as a directory to posts about each neighborhood. To learn what I found from each neighborhood, click on the name of each below:

Following is a list of the Chicago Community Areas by community area number (see map).

May God get the glory!

Once again I find myself in my favorite coffee shop, the Mud House here in Springfield, MO. I don’t know what it is about this place; its one of the only places I can people-watch AND get some quality time in with my laptop or a good book. This is a place of peace for me - I know that I could pay this place’s light bill if I lived here.

On our holiday trip we’ve had some great conversations with family - with subjects ranging from Chicago plans (or plans still in the making) to living life with forgiveness and acceptance at the center of our lives. Both sides of our family have been through major traumas, and everyone (from great-grandparents to the newborns) have been drastically affected. Trina and I have found ourselves mainly as listeners, counselors, and coaches to our own family, and it has been extremely healing for us. We too need to be listened to. We too need to make peace with our family, and to be restful and REAL with who we are as an extended family together.

While most of this year has been jam-packed with life-altering forks in the road, the majority of this life is filled with moments like this. The simple movements of life that require little more than keeping our eyes open to where we are at the moment. Living honestly as we enjoy a cup of coffee, sitting quietly over in a corner of a busy coffeehouse. While we may have revolutionary dreams, those are the punctuations of a much longer sentence in our lives.

Right now at the end of 2007, I’m just thankful to be spending time here in a warm, enjoyable coffee shop, with little else to think about but rest, rejuvenation, and Christ’s re-birth in our hearts. This is Christmas after all. Cheers.

We had a breakthrough today…literally.

I spent the morning with Miller today digging the biggest hole I’ve ever seen made by human hands.  I mean, its huge.  It’s the kind of hole my elementary school self would have been proud of.

Apparently he’s been working on it with some other friends for quite some time.  When I arrived on the scene it was already down to about 10 feet.  We had a pulley system with a bucket to bail to dirt out…the whole schebang.  A hand dug well…that’s a first for a city-boy like me.

We both took turns picking and shoveling ourselves further and further into God’s good earth.  The only air moving around down thereis the kind you make…and believe me, you’d rather the still air to that.  :)  While Miller and I shoveled, hauled, and conversed, I allowed myself to feel God’s presence in the absolutely mundane.  There is nothing glorious about what was happening there this morning, and yet, stilling my heart was probably the best thing that could have happened to me today.

Every time I work with Miller out on his land, I get a whiff of God’s dream for humankind.  Humans are to work with their hands; to labor and sweat to produce something beautiful.  We’ve moved away from the ways in which God intended.  I mean, most of my profession as a student is just sitting in a chair facing forward, poking away at plastic bits and watching lights flash on a screen.  I never feel more satisfied than when I look back on a day I’ve poured work and sweat into, and seen the results.

As our time out on his land was nearing an end (it was STANKIN’ HOT!), we hit water!  It was no powerful geyser, but it was a definite trickle.  Praise God!  He works in the small, and unimpressive to demonstrate his incredible, everlasting love.  The deep satisfaction on Miller’s face was priceless.  It was all worth it now.

So maybe I’m the delinquent here. Has EVERYONE else already heard of Meetup.com? It is the neatest new discovery on my travels through the web. In case the one other person on this planet who hasn’t heard of this nifty service just so happens to find this post, let me fill you in on what its all about.

Let’s say you’re new to the area, and you want to meet some people - but the people you work with are all losers or snobs, and you aren’t sure how you managed to have so time to be in clubs/ activities way back in your High School days. Enter Meetup. You have an interest in pugs, or antiquated lawn gnomes, and you search for these topics locally. Meetup hooks you up with those in your area also interested in your strange hobbies and let’s you join in on their events! Before long, you’re standing in a sea of old lawn gnomes and new friends.

I’ve already used this tool as a way to find others who are interested in sustainable architecture and farmer’s markets in my area. Tons of fun!

Check out this video below:

Wouldn’t this be a neat way to naturally and relationally connect with other Christians in your area who are searching out God down similar pathways? Those in more organic-styled church networks are finding it difficult to coordinate times for everyone to get together, but this opens the door, AND it communicates to others in your area about your gatherings. I like this because it allows just about anyone in the Meetup group to organize an event, and let everyone else know about it. It takes the attention off the “leaders” pulling off all the events, and allows Joe to invite everyone over for burgers or Lucy to call all the women to pray over her new-born child.

Are there some down sides to this? Maybe. Should we be so concerned with meeting people who have similar interests? Is it really SO hard to find friends these days that we look people up on the internet to check them out before meeting with them? What ever happened to baking cookies and knocking on our neighbor’s door?

Any other thoughts?

Last Saturday I picked up an extra shift at the steakhouse I work for here in Abilene. As of late I have been in prayer about my co-workers and asking the Lord to raise up workers in his harvest from among the people who work there. Father has been drawing my prayers toward one individual, who is quickly becoming a good friend of mine.

This man is not even as old as I am, and yet he just finished signing all his divorce papers last Friday. That is why he invited me and several others out to Remington’s Bar after work on Saturday. Remington’s is (I’m told) the most respectable bar in Abilene; a good middle-class experience - not too grungy, and not gold-plated. I’ve been there a few times in the past, and each time I walk in with the prayer that God would open my ears and eyes to what I am supposed to experience. He has never failed to answer that prayer.

My friend and I were sitting together and reflecting on his past 3 years as a married man when she approached. Her name was Shar. She had just moved back from Atlanta and knew absolutely NO ONE in Abilene. While she was disappointed with the night life (who isn’t?), she kept hoping that she would find some fun friends to start hanging out with. We introduced ourselves and told her that we had some other friends that would be joining us soon.

Before long we were all toasting each other with drinks and smiles, patting each other on the back for a long night’s work well done. Shar was still in the group, but was having a hard time striking up a meaningful conversation through all the “steakhouse banter”. She scooted over towards me and asked, “So what did you say you were studying?”

With a just a hint of anxiety in my voice I replied, “Uh, missions.”

“Oh.” She did better than most to quickly change the subject, talking about her life in med school and her father who had passed away two years ago, but about 10 minutes later she pressed further.

“So you’re in missions? What is that exactly? That means, like, Christian stuff right? Do you want to be a pastor or something?” I had been pegged. I told her that I did not want to be a pastor, and that both my wife and I had been changed by Christ in very tangible ways, and I wanted to spend my life letting people know what else in life is possible when Christ is at the center. I felt better than I normally do trying to explain myself…as if I really needed to.

“So…” she looked around the room, then back at me.

“Oh. I guess you’re wondering why I’m HERE. I suppose I see no reason why a Christian should hole himself up away from his friends and from so many others just because bars are looked down on at churches. This is where Jesus would’ve been hanging out. Look how much fun they’re having!” I pointed up at an elderly couple that was doing a pretty energetic two-step at the front of the room. They were obviously in love and loving life.

Shar went a little deeper, “That’s good to hear. You know, I had a few Christian friends back in Atlanta who were just amazing. I loved hanging out with them and all, but I always felt judged by them because while I would hang out with them, they would never hang out with me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean they would never come out to the bars I loved to go to, and never found time to head to any of my other friends’ houses. It just seemed like they were there to drag me away from everyone else I knew. I guess things would have been a lot different for my life if they had actually cared.”

That did it for me. I saw clearly, maybe for the first time ever, the effects of Christians who are just there to add to their own numbers, and not to truly befriend those who needed to know Christ. All I could say in response was, “Shar, there is so much more to following Christ than you’ve been shown. Keep looking.” I don’t know if that conversation affected her, but it sure got to me.

Steve, my Bostonian buddy, just finished writing a great post on “exiles at the table”.  Christians have become professionals at inviting others to their own activities…their own tables.  But could it be that many non-Christians are waiting for Christians to join them at their own tables before trusting them will ever be an option?

Shar’s words about her life almost being changed but for the segmenting Christian friends she hung out with holds tight around my heart.  I will NEVER be afraid to go somewhere with my non-Christian friend.  Christ who goes with me is more powerful than anything that might be present, wherever we go.  For the rest of my life I commit to demonstrating my love for my friends by being present, and by being Christ everywhere I go.  Now “studying missions” actually means something to me.

Lord, I pray for Shar, and I ask that while she in here in Abilene you will give her friends that meet her on her turf - people who are incarnations of your Kingdom in her world.   That the world may know.