What are your thoughts about this movement? How does this shape, change, help or hurt our connection and belonging with others? Seriously, just curious about what you think?

Along the way JD Walt – Sr. Editor of the Common Text Project and Dean of the Chapel at Asbury Seminary – is offering us some short teaching video clips that compliment our readings.   This one in particular captured me this morning and wanted to share it with you all.

Today we  are only on day 14 of 40 so come and read with us.  You can pick up a hard copy of the reader at or Cornerstone bookstore or just read daily at asburyreader.com.  Come follow Him with us.

Lord, High and Holy, Meek and Lowly,

You have brought me to the valley of vision,
where I live in the depths but see you in the heights;
hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold your glory.

Let me learn by paradox
that the way down is the way up,
that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart,
that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
that to have nothing is to possess all,
that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
that to give is to receive,
that the valley is the place of vision.

Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from deepest wells,
and the deeper the wells the brighter your stars shine;

Let me find your light in my darkness,
your life in my death,
your joy in my sorrow,
your grace in my sin,
your riches in my poverty,
your glory in my valley.

Amen

So over the next few days she organized herself – making signs, gathering supplies, and spreading the word, all with a little help from her parents, Trudi and Brett.  Then on Sunday January 31st in the Camden Ridge neighborhood of Auburn, Kirra set up her little card table and put out the signs, balloons and marshmallows.  In the next two hours the glass jar on the table filled up to a total $280.  But this grew even more when a neighbor, moved by the cause, offered to match the funds dollar for dollar…taking it up to $560.  The next week Kirra sent the entire $560 to the UNICEF, going to help aid orphaned children in Haiti.

What an amazing story that shows us what it looks like to love as Christ: a young girl rallying a neighborhood on a cold day to send money to those in need.  This is the wisdom of God that is poured into children that we often overlook and don’t see.  We’re too busy, too sophisticated, or just too self-centered to get it.  But Kirra’s heart got it.  We all have much to learn from her.

Kirra, thank you for teaching me and Cornerstone Church how to see and love the world like Jesus.  You are a champion and a true daughter of the King!

“It is not the magnitude of our actions but the amount of love we put into them that matters.”  Mother Teresa

Well, about a week ago at the dinner table Benjamin comes out of nowhere with this….”Dad, your job is to talk about God, not yourself.”

Ouch.  Actually when he said this I was not even listening to him.  Leslie helped me – “Did you hear what he just said?”  I replied…”No what did he say.”  And she told me…those words that I didn’t want to think were for me. (I was probably talking about myself at the very time he said it).

I came away from the table thinking, “Oh ya that’s cute, I’ll remember that story and share it with other people in a way to tell them not to be selfish and talk about themselves all the time.”  But the truth…it’s for me.  There is always the temptation to talk about myself, project myself, make myself great, have a good name, reputation, and play the image management game.  And I often cave into it.  It is here where Christ calls us to a new way…a new story…where we become less so that he may become greater.  We begin to live not for our own glory but for his.

Lately I’m discovering how much energy it takes to keep what is called the “false self” running (constantly projecting an image to the world as what I want and hope them to see me as).  It’s kinda like those dudes who are spinning all those plates in the air at the circus.  And I’m starting to get the guts to just let all the plates fall to the ground, slowly-  one by one, and me just stand there in front of the world with broken plates all around me…just me – the regular old real Josh.  This is a lifetime journey for me.  Shedding the false self and putting on the true self that Paul talks about.

Hope you come with me.  Need some company on the road.

Uganda Invitation from Cornerstone Church on Vimeo.

The next two trips we have lined up are May 25-June 3 (for college students) and June 8-18th.  For more information and to get in on this trip just email  Brian Johnson – brian@cornerstonebuzz.org…deadline is February 21st, 2010.

Read more posts on our partnership with Uganda.

³“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
⁴Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
⁵Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.

It is my prayer that the church may be a part in fulfilling these words for our brothers and sisters in Haiti.  Today our team at Cornerstone Church has been figuring out how to respond.  Our first response is to pray.  Please pray for these in Haiti, for Haitians all around the world seeing their home in rubble, and for those workers on the front line.  Beyond this all we can do at this point is give of our finances to those who already are on the ground in Haiti.  So, this Sunday we are preparing to take up a special offering to assist in the relief effort. If you are going to write a check, you can make it out to Cornerstone United Methodist Church and put UMCOR in the memo line. (UMCOR stands for United Methodist Committee on Relief.)  They are one of the relief organizations on the ground in Haiti right now. Your money will go directly to helping those who have been affected by the earthquake.

Grasshopper Snack from Josh Agerton on Vimeo.

But we had much more happen on this trip beyond grasshoppers.  It was a great time to be with the leaders of Buloba Community Church and spend some time visioning and planning for the next few years together in our partnership.  More to come…working on some videos that tell more of the story.

Our work this time has been different than before. We are not digging trenches for building foundations or laying bricks. But we are working on a different kind of foundation. We have spent the majority of our time collaborating with Buloba Community Church leaders about vision, our strategic partnership, and the next steps for each of us in spreading the love of Jesus Christ in their community. Our team has worked really hard – getting up early and staying up late – praying, learning, listening, processing, and more praying about the next steps Christ is calling us to do here. We have done this together over these last four days and my mind has shut down a few times. In this Christ has been our guide. We have seen his direction as well as his face. Been good.

Aside from this we’ve also been working hard to capture the story of what is happening here through video and photography. We’ve done several interviews and have storyboarded several videos we hope to produce when back home. There is a great need to creatively tell the story of what is happening here and expand the invitation to become a part of what is happening here in Buloba.

But we’ve also had the usual fun through all of this as well. Brian at a fried caterpillar (video to come once I get home to a good internet connection). We bought a bag of them from a dude on the side of the road while in traffic. I’ve been slamming down orange Fanta out of the bottle like crazy. Ya, I know we have the in the US but for some reason I only drink it over here. We’ve had fun watching all the craziness as we drive through Kampala. We rode through the woods on a boda boda (motorcycle- Ugandan style). And of course after 3 days in close quarters bodily functions has become a part of normal conversations.

Redemption is happening here in a big way. I see it every time I come here. It’s the transformation from ashes into a crown of beauty, the trading in of a spirit of despair for hope; people being turned into huge oak trees of righteousness for the display of Christ’s name. Good times here.