How do we continue to live missionally with the addition of children to our home? That's the question I began asking myself while we were still in South Africa. The critical part of this transition back to the United States and into parenthood for me has been for us to continue living a life worth emulating. A life that, in spite of the pressures of living in a culture in hot pursuit of the American dream, we can love God, serve people, and enjoy a healthy family life.

We're doing the BEST we can to anticipate the changes which will take place come January with the addition of three children to our family. The emotional changes, the relational changes, the schedule changes. I'm the visionary and Deb's the manager in the family - so I've got pictures of dancing and playing and laughing, while Deb seems to have pictures of bathing, feeding, and diaper changing. Both are gonna happen - but how do we best "prepare" our lives to include these activities? I've got forty years of doing life with me, fourteen with Deb...both of us pretty self-sufficient. (Okay, so EVERY once in awhile I get sick, end up in the hospital, or get poison oak or something and I gotta be babied by Debbie...but beyond that, I can MOSTLY care for myself!)

Regardless, we've not lived with anyone who needed constant care before. This is gonna be a WILD ride for the first several days, weeks, and months as we allow the needs of these BEAUTIFUL little invaders to inhabit our lives. The dancing, playing, and laughing I can ease in rather seamlessly. The bathing, feeding, and diaper changing I will, as you probably assumed, need to assimilate progressively. Up to this point, even as I write this, I just know I'm gonna take each moment as it comes, which to me makes sense. I'm not positive, but it seems Deb sees me as either over-optimistic or delusional. I'm betting on a bit of both.

So the question is, how practical should we try to be? What kind of things should we attempt to prepare for and what things should we wait to see what happens when the kids get here? I mean, from the parenting perspective, of COURSE we have to do all the safety measures given to us by OliveCrest like safety locks on doors and cupboards - but, as part of our pre-certification training, we've also been taking a BUNCH of classes and reading a BUNCH of books on parenting issues like discipline and attachment disorders. A LOT of great stuff in these classes and books. My hope is, however, that we don't walk into parenting these children with negative assumptions and expectations we've picked up during our training regarding their personalities and behaviors. These children, even with their rough start, could have virtually no abnormalities in their development whatsoever. That's my prayer, of course, that God has protected their hearts, minds, and souls up to this point so we can love them into normal development.

These kinds of questions and "concerns" will rattle our brains during this transition to parenthood - not to mention the other end of our world...the missional life...which we're attempting to adjust to prepare for these changes to come, as well.

As I've attempted to envision what "missional-with-kids" could look like, I began dreaming of how to fit all the pieces together of our life-to-be. At least to begin with:

- I'll be "Mr. Mom" while Deb continues working at the credit union. I'll be serving at Haven Hospice as a chaplain three half-days a week when Deb's at home or while the kids are in day-care. (There's a nurse at Haven Hospice who runs a day-care in Long Beach! AWESOME, huh?)

- I'll still be hosting the Church Resource Ministries' Taste-n-See weekends at the Long Beach Rescue Mission once a month, scheduling them around Deb's weekends off.

- Deb will still be serving Monday nights at her child-care ministry so the working-poor parents in the city can take free English-as-a-second-language classes.

The next step is to coordinate our ministry objectives with the kind of local expression of church we hope for and need. In particular, creating community around us where we can have the kind of life-on-life relationships we need to live this missional life.

MOST recently I've been working with a number of ministry teams in Long Beach attempting to create reasonable connecting points for churches to involve themselves in the fight against poverty and homelessness in Long Beach. As I began thinking of the kind of local expression of church our family will need, I thought of all the different churches who serve the Rescue Mission. They give of their time and talent to help in the kitchen and provide meals for the homeless and poor in our community. They also have teams lead the chapel services with music and messages Sunday mornings and several evenings during the week. Right now, however, its random, disconnected, individual groups doing their own thing with no coordination with the rescue mission's objectives of helping the homeless and poor get off the streets, find adequate employment and housing, and address any specific addictive, spiritual, or relational issues they may be facing.

My thought is to somehow create a cooperative effort with the rescue mission and these churches where Debbie and I can assist with the services they offer to worship with and feed the homeless and poor. Possibly such an effort could turn into some kind of church plant where we assist these church teams in making coordinated efforts to work with the rescue mission and the other church teams to reach the rescue mission's objectives. These churches would provide the programming for the worship services, while Deb and I offer the pastoral support to care for the community care elements of a local expression of church.

My hope for such a church plant would be a place where Debbie and I could serve together in ministry with the homeless and poor community we've both grown to love since we've been back in California WHILE offering a safe place for our children to experience the kind missional life we've grown to love, as well. With such a church plant, I also hope we'll be able to begin building the kinds of life-on-life relationships we need and want here in Long Beach that we've enjoyed in Orange County and South Africa.

ALL this seems more like a pipe-dream at this point, of course. But, so did the possibility of having kids within six months of landing in California! I know it may be beyond anything you've ever thought about...but we would LOVE you to help us pray about such a vision. Our kids will be our first consideration as we begin carving out this missional-with-kids life in 2007. But, we don't want to lose sight of these possibilities in ministry either.

This week I'll be in St. Louis at the Urbana Missions Conference. I'll be interacting with college age students trying to figure out their calling to mission with the help of missional leaders, missions organizations, and seminaries from all around the world. My prayer is, this week will help me just as much as these students with offering some clarity to these visions of mine. Once again, I certainly don't want to be premature with my attempts to pursue these visions, but I also don't want to leave everything on the back-burner either.

We'll be praying for you, as well, as you prepare your heart, soul, and mind for what 2007 could bring to your life! It's gonna be an INCREDIBLE year!