Growing Deep Roots

written by Libby Hase

When I moved back to Greensboro this past fall after five years of being away for college and work, I was craving community. However, after being away for so long, I felt like I didn’t know my own community back in Greensboro.

But the Greensboro Fellows has changed that. Being in this program has helped me reconnect with the city I grew up in. And I am so thankful for that. I am learning just how awesome Greensboro really is. I am learning new things about what is going on in Greensboro. God is really doing some great things through some great people here.

One of my favorite parts of our program is the speakers who come in to talk to us on Thursdays. Various business owners and otherwise generally fascinating people who live in Greensboro come to talk to us about their life stories, their careers, and how God has journeyed with them through it all. I have been so thankful for this because I feel truly blessed that these people are sacrificing their time and energy to come talk to us. Every Thursday I feel like a sponge, happily, eagerly soaking up the wisdom of the unique men and women who speak.

Charlie and Ruth Jones came to talk to us one Thursday. Their passion for community really resonated with me. For the past 6 years, they have been fostering community in Greensboro and have set up a monthly dinner called Greensboro Grub. The idea of Greensboro Grub is to have people from all classes and backgrounds eating at the same table together and sharing life and love with one another. They had a theatre group called Peculiar People for a while and now they have started a nonprofit called City616 to bring community and a sense of belonging to the people of Greensboro. They are currently in a state of expansion and are planning to use their space downtown to house interns, teach theatre classes, have a community-building coffee shop, among other things. I am encouraged and inspired by Charlie and Ruth Jones’ initiatives.

Greensboro Grub

God is bringing amazing people into my life through the Fellows program and I am excited to learn more about what God will do through the people of Greensboro.

“With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” –Ephesians 4:2-6

“That there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” -1 Corinthians 12: 25-27

“Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.” –Romans 15:7

Sunshine State

written by Matt Moench

I am from the Sunshine State. But sometimes the sunshine don’t shine. It didn’t when we were in sunny, sunny Florida a couple of weeks ago. But that fact didn’t prevent our Fellows community from enjoying one another on an exciting adventure hundreds of miles from Greensboro. It was 65 degrees (as opposed to 20 North Carolina), and cloudy, and sometimes rainy, but we still had a great time building our friendships and enjoying the good world our God has made, resting in Him together.

Sadly our noble leader Tripp Graziano was otherwise occupied, preparing for the annual Greensboro Fellows Banquet (which you should come to if you’re able!), and our noble friend Kevin Palcsak was busy getting engaged (rock on!), so they were sadly unable to join us in our gallivanting escapade. But all the same, the rest of the Fellows (and Kinsley’s boyfriend Andrew, who is my new contract bridge partner… don’t judge, we’re not old ladies) traveled down to Florida and spent a couple days at beach-side home that my family owns in Anna Maria, FL. Then most of the fellows went to Universal Studio’s Islands of Adventure in Orlando and had great fun on roller coasters, seeing Harry Potter/buying magic wands, and walking upside down in Seuss Landing. Emily, Libby and I went to St. Petersburg that day and visited my family and hung out at my house. It was a tremendous blessing to be home, even for such a brief period.

I am happy to report that time spent on the beach is a soothing balm for the soul; I believe for me and the entire community. The Greensboro Fellows is not a program for the faint of heart. The close community, challenging life situations, and sinful nature of the human heart all combine to make the Fellows program a pressure cooker. As the Scriptures say, God refines us to look like His Son Jesus through trials, that our faith may be as pure as gold refined by fire. That has very much been my experience in the program. But no matter how beautiful we expect the gold on the other side of the fire to be, flames hurt. And, because of pain, I have found myself at times questioning the goodness of God - His presence and His care. It’s not so much that I haven’t believed intellectually as I have hurt existentially. As much as I love God, in the midst of life and sin I can feel distant from Him.

But thanks be to God that He doesn’t leave us alone! I had a meeting with my mentor Ben Sharpe (an Anglican priest in Winston Salem, NC) just before the trip. He said that one of the characteristic signs of the lies of the evil one are nihilistic feelings and thoughts. Why should we feel so alone? Isn’t there evidence to the contrary? Didn’t Jesus die for us? Aren’t the Fellows, or friends and family, loving and supporting us each day, however imperfectly? Why should we say “it’s only the times I feel depressed and alone that are ‘real’”? Why should we discount the times we feel loved, supported, and accepted?Father Ben’s greatest wisdom: “the trump card is nature. Go sit out under the stars for a half hour. See the order, the beauty, the transcendence. Let it into your soul. And then see how you feel. Then see where your thoughts turn.” Well, I can say that worshiping on the beach is just as good as the stars. Hearing a regular rhythm of gentle waves across white sand, feeling a calm breeze, smelling the salty sea, it all reminded me of how beautiful and tremendous the God of the universe is.

He is not always serene. Sometimes waves crash, sometimes wind becomes a tornado, sometimes the sea smells of death. But for the Fellows on our trip to Florida, God brought us into a rest that He purchased at infinite cost through the death of His Son Jesus. I am eternally grateful. If you don’t know that rest, I would commend God’s Wisdom to you: go look at the stars, or stand on the beach. Play the trump card. The Glory of God will break through into your heart.

“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” Psalm 19:1

The War Within

written by Kinsley Craft

A couple of days ago (when all of Greensboro was shut down by a whopping 2 inches of snow) I was given the delight of coming home from work early and watching “Tangled” with my cousin Honey and some of her friends. I was pumped because I love this movie. And one scene in particular stuck out to me while I was watching it last week. Watch the first 45 seconds of this clip:

Love it. Rapunzel is living out the reality of my own heart. I nearly always have an internal debate going on within me: grace v law.

I sin; I mess up all the time. Sometimes I allow the loving waves of God’s grace to wash over me and bask in His unconditional love for me. In those moments I feel so free and liberated from the weight of my sin… in those moments are also when I tend to take liberties with His law. I do what I want because I am assured of His grace. Other times I am utterly aware of my failures and devastated by the realization of how broken I am. I grovel at the feet of Christ begging Him to take pity on my disgusting soul. I can flip-flop between these multiple times in the course of an hour… just like the scene from Tangled shows.

Paul talks about a similar feeling of internal conflict in Romans 7:14-25

“We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

I have always loved this passage because I identify with this internal struggle within Paul. Why do I do the things that I don’t want to do? Why I am unable to do the things I know that I should do? Why can I not be simultaneously aware of the overwhelming GRACE of God and guided by the direction of His LAW?

This year the Lord is teaching me more and more about how to live in this tension. His grace frees us, but not to do whatever we want. He frees us to worship Him fully. God is just, and His laws are good. BUT they are HARD to obey. We have to fight against the sinful nature within us. The only way we can win the fight is by letting Him fight for us. As I become more aware of the Lord’s grace in my life, my desire to obey Him is strengthened.

I still have my “tangled” moments when I am fluctuating between joy and despair. When I am overwhelmed by His love then overwhelmed by my sin… and the cycle continues. But Jesus steps into that tension more and more. Teaching me to be aware of His grace and His law. Recognizing that I will never be perfect and always be in need of both in order to live for Him. Jesus steps into my internal war and reminds me that He has already won. He won 2,000 years ago when He chose to take on every sin I would ever commit, yet He still loves me.

Romans 7:25

“Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”