Hugh Halter

Tonight I took my 21-year-old son Ryan to a basketball game. To be honest, I wasn’t excited to go. I was pooped and wasn’t in the mood for a loud gymnasium.
Ryan has severe epilepsy, and has since birth. His team is cornucopia of developmentally disabled people from 14-20 years of age. Most have Down syndrome, autism, cerebral palsy, or retardation. Some of them are cute, but most are severally unattractive to look at and watching them struggle to talk and walk, let alone play a functional game of basketball is pretty tough.

Imagine the scene I am watching right now: Ryan is double dribbling the ball with both hands all the way down the court and no one is calling a violation. After he airballs from 12 feet, someone from the other team throws the ball back so he can try again. Another airball. So this time, another kid takes the ball to Ryan and invites him to step a little closer while the other kids clear the lane so he can have a clear shot. He shoots, and the ball bounces around the rim, but falls to the side. All the kids pat him on the back and congratulate him for getting close.

As the other team now comes back down the other way, a girl in a wheel chair is being pushed by anther team member. She has the ball in her lap. She’s gripping it tightly but needs another persons help hold her head up. She is drooling uncontrollably from the excitement of getting to play. They wheel her right under the basket and another team member asks her permission to shoot for her. He makes the shot and they all give her a hug, as the shooter unassumingly runs back down to get ready for the next play.

This goes on and on until every person gets some meaningful experience in the game. All the parents root for everyone and no one looks at the scoreboard because no matter what the real score, the scorekeeper keeps the game even.

No one loses, no one is a loser, everyone counts, appearance or capacity mean nothing, everyone is dependent upon each other, no one is ashamed of failure, thankfulness for life is the one constant, and everyone can’t wait to see each other next week because of the experience they just shared.

What if church was like that?

Breaking through the perfection of this picture of church, however, are two people I’m looking at right now. One is a father who is sternly talking to his son who just came off the court. He seems to be intensely pushing his son to try harder. If I wasn’t writing this blog, I’d like to go over there and throw him off the bleachers! His son has Down syndrome and constantly smiles, except in this moment where he’s getting asked to do something beyond his abilities. The game was a blast until expectations of others shriveled his heart.

The second individual is the oldest player on the court. While the beautiful picture of the perfect church happens before my eyes, this disabled kid is about 6’ 4” and actually is quite athletic, probably good enough to play on a normal high school team. He has apparently watched too much pro basketball, because every time he gets the ball, he does some creative head-fakes, hits a 25 foot jumper over the wheel-chair girl and after the swish, yells “That’s right…who’s your daddy?!” as he holds the arrogant pose.
The first guys reminds me of so many lay members who’s expectations of performance suck the heart out of a church. The second guy reminds me of some pastors I’ve seen who call people to play at their level without realizing the normal constraints of life for the average Joe.

Anyway, just some thoughts.

This last Wednesday, we held our first ever Ahava Fest. Ahava is referenced in Ezra chapter 8. Ezra leads his community down to a beautiful watering hole named ahava and declares a fast and they begin to seek God for what they were to do with their children and their possessions. Ahav means “to give.” Ahava means “love.” The concept is to “love through giving.”

Adullam has been a unique experience in many ways, not the least of which is how we deal with helping people understand how to handle their resources (time & money). We have never taken an offering in our main gathering and we have sensed a radical distrust and skepticism by both existing Christ followers and the new band of Vikings who have found faith with us. Heck, I don’t even trust churches to do the right thing with money. It’s never bothered us that people are not giving to God stuff. The average churchgoer gives about 3% of their income to charity…the exact % non christian people give to charity.

Yet, there remains a truck load of scripture that references our giving, and deep down in our hearts, we know we should and that God likes it! So what do you do?

We did Ahava. We took 6 weeks to have our entire community reflect on (intentionality, stewardship, simplicity, community, and calling) We shared ways that we can help the world by simply giving up things instead of just calling them to giving more out of their pockets. Then we gathered and drank wine…alot of it. and called the entire community to live this year with a committment to greater simplicity/sacrifice/time etc. I commented to many that I’ve never talked about money in front of 200 people and had them all smiling! It was like sharing one of the coolest ideas ever….that we get to love God and love the world by giving.

Adullam works in the minds of many skeptics because we’ve shown that we’re not about growing a church. We don’t have any full time pastors (in fact the 7 people that serve adullam require a combined income of $5500/month) Yep, we have 7 people for the price of one. We ask our staff to raise missionary support as Matt and I do, so that we can be as little financial burdent to the mission as we can, thus freeing up more money to help real people.

Just for fodder, I made mention that it’s possible that a hundred people (drinking tap water instead of bottled, downgrading our cable packages, giving up one happy meal a week…. would free up about 10k a month). I then posed the question. What if we not only gave up a bunch of crap we don’t need and wouldn’t feel BUT WE ALSO gave 5%?? In our setting that would be about $40k a month. With the lean way we run adullam, it would free up $25k a month to bless people. That’s just with 200 adults!!

People don’t trust spiritual leaders with money for several reasons. 1) They see us putting all our cash into our own stuff (salaries, buildings, overseas missions) None of which are all that inspiring. 2) Most leaders don’t let people help determine where money goes.

In Adullam, our Ahava Fest is how we will now budget for the new year and every year from here on out. What we commit to give together to love God and love the world is what we have to work with. No pressure, no fear, no waste. All of sudden, we’re excited to get out of debt, give, serve, love, and be together. I can’t wait for next year and feel honored I get to serve with these people.

Last Sunday at the Gathering, some really cool stuff happened. If you weren’t there, we sat everyone at round tables and Kevin and Ryan led us through some dialogue regarding “intentional community.” In fine Adullam form, I noticed that after I dismissed everyone, no one left. In fact it was about 60 minutes later that the discussion finally ended at the tables. This week, two people emailed me thanking us for “forcing” the issue and shared that the people at their table seemed to be hand picked to start new villages.

Last night I had the chance to meet with three people that are new to Adullam. As usual I shared the vision, the story and all those dumb diagrams I usually draw to try to explain what’s unique about Adullam. One dude said that his parents are a little concerned that they are going to Adullam, referencing the word “cult.” I’m not suprised, Matt and I get this all the time.

I think, I’ve finally figured out why people think we’re weird. Two things only…..One, we enjoy beer, two, we put as much emphasis on relationships together as we do about our relationship with God. Although, I think this is simply a mirror of what we see in the early faith communities, apparently it’s quite strange for white-bread americans. Some even think it’s of the underworld.

As I think about our intentionality towards the Adullam ways, I am starting to see that we’re not for everyone. We’re not for people that just want a sermon and donut, we’re not just for people that would rather watch CSI than go be with people or help people. Besides that, we don’t seem to connect well with people from Nebraska, Iowa, the Dakotas, and some suburbs of Texas! Just kidding on all that.

Seriously though, the communal ways of the ancient faith communities go against our natural selfish, insecure ways like a salmon swimming upstream to spawn. We can get there, but it’s going to be a fight!! Would it be easier to just do church, and leave everyone alone. Yep. But deep down, our communal buy-in to struggle against the grain of our lives and our culture will produce a new story that real God seekers are looking for.

As we continue to move toward Ahava, take time to be silent and reflect upon what God is calling us all to. Be honest, be together, and be changed with us!

Can’t wait to see you all and continue our dialogue Sunday.

A few nights ago, I had a conversation with Lou Braun. Lou’s been with Adullam for about a year. He came to Denver to play lacrosse for the Denver Outlaws, but quickly realized that God had larger plans for him in regards to full-time ministry, not to mention meeting his fiancee Kim. His change of focus also fit the reality that Lou wasn’t getting to play in all the games. Unlike professional basketball where you can get an ankle injury or be indicted for domestic abuse, and still get paid, in pro lacrosse, if you don’t play, you just get a free hot dog and a few tickets for your buddies.

Well, this last Saturday in New York, Lou was asked to start and took all face offs. He said, he was doing okay, but as the game wore on, the other team scored with about a minute to go. All they had to do was win the last face off and stall and they win. Lou lined up and not only won the face off, but he kept control, ran all the way down the field, and scored unassisted to tie the game. The Outlaws won in overtime!

I thought this was a great reminder of how quickly things can change, simply by “hanging around” and being willing to play. One minute you feel like northing’s going on, and the next minute something of significance occurs.

Most of life tests our faith that God will use us for anything. We work, go to school, keep the yard up, and try to pay off our Visas. The mundane is something we can all count on, yet we always have this hope of significance and impact in the world.
The scriptures are honest with this paradox. On one hand, I Thessalonians 4:11 says, “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands.” And on the other hand we see normal people doing the very works of Christ and changing the legacy of families and nations.

The lesson in Lou’s story and the story of our faith, screams to just “be in the right spot”, and God will in His timing surprise you with moments of brilliance. Keep folding the laundry, driving the kids to practice; study hard, work with diligence and integrity at work ,and open your life and home to friends. Then expect that God will use your simple life to “win the respect of those outside our faith”.