Worship - Together (Ubuntu) w/Andy Boswell

Yeah, let's see how it goes with the beard and the microphone and whatever.

So, alright, so because I'm long-winded, I set a timer.

Alright, so, good morning everybody.

So today I'm going to be talking about Ubuntu, which is worship through your community.

So I'm going to be following behind some pretty powerful messages.

I don't know, you know, those of you who were privileged enough to see and hear the messages

before with Greg and Tony and Marissa and Scott.

I always find, you know, it's when new people start coming up to talk and give messages

and stuff, you just don't know what to expect.

And so I apologize in advance for that, by the way.

But no, I always really find, you know, Greg's sermons are awesome and very thought-provoking.

I love it when Scott shares.

But now that Eric and Tony and Marissa have shared, I hope I'm at least half as compelling

as them.

Now, I have to give a couple of references for the past sermons as, you know, and they'll

come up in my message.

But I told Marissa the other day, so as I was like polishing up, trying to cut out all

the fat, you know, in the sermon, and I'm talking about community, I get an email and

a phone call about some legislation that I'm trying to help push through that has to do

with restoration and community.

So I was like, God, incidents, here we go.

You know, like it was like confirmation that the timing is right.

So anyway, I'm going to give you guys a little background on me so you know where I came

from.

So I was born in Keewanee, small farm town, about 45 minutes away.

Went to school with kids whose parents had gone to school with my parents.

My dad and I even had a few of the same teachers from 1962 to 1993.

Everybody knew everybody.

You know, at least it seems so.

My mom was a volunteer in the community.

She worked on the 708 mental health board.

Later on, she worked at Black Hawk College as a volunteer for the ESL program.

And so I was kind of getting the feel of what it means to be in the community.

But how did I end up on Rock Island?

Well my mom's next older sister, my Aunt Jenny and my Uncle Bob, moved here from Colorado,

Oklahoma, around 1980, and they started a service master cleaning business.

They were also Cub Scout leaders, so they were pretty plugged into the community.

So as a kid, it was always more exciting to be hanging out in Rock Island, and they got

introduced to all the businesses, the restaurants and whatnot.

And then my aunt and uncle, since they were so connected, I got to see celebrities, like

I hung out in Don Sharp's house one time.

Or, yeah, like, or you know, meet the mayor or the consument or the owner of this business

or that business or whatever.

And so, you know, another example of community.

So a few years later, I met my wife, Bree.

After we were married and started looking to buy our first home, we felt very, very

strongly about living in Rock Island.

We looked at a lot of promising homes, and then they'd sell right from underneath us.

You guys, if you ever shopped for a home, you know how that goes.

You're like, oh, this is perfect.

And then, oh, someone put an offer in, and it's been accepted.

So we walked into the back door of our house, which goes into our big kitchen.

And if you've been to our house, you know we have a big kitchen, which everyone seems

to congregate and talk while we're trying to cook dinner to hang out in the other room.

But it's such a big kitchen.

We walked in and we went, we have to make an offer.

We don't want to lose this one.

And then Bree had mentioned also that as we drove through the neighborhood at night, all

the porch lights were on.

It looked very welcoming and warm.

And when we drove through the day, you'd see people out in the neighborhoods.

It just looked like a neighborhood.

So I'll fast forward a little bit.

Once we got the house, we got settled in.

We started to meet all the neighbors, they were very welcoming.

We had an elderly neighbor who, her and her husband were in their 90s before they moved

away.

The husband had gone to elementary school with Mr. Rogers.

No joke.

We were at the 90-something birthday party, and they had this thing up at the elementary,

and one kid's got the sign that says, whatever grade school.

And there's Mr. Rogers sitting next to John Caldwell.

Crazy.

So yes, very neighborly people.

So we had the Caldwells, and then we had another family, a lady named Terry, who organized

our neighborhood block club meetings, talked about updates and concerns.

Clara had a phone tree that she would publish, and then everyone knew everybody's phone numbers

so we could call each other if we needed anything.

We had a sheriff, the sheriff at the time, a judge, several Augustana professors, several

working class families, and a pot dealer on the corner right across the street from us,

who loved to share his gardening tips, and he had a pet squirrel named Boo Boo.

As time passed on, our little neighborhood had some changes.

People come and go, houses suddenly get expansions or garages pop up, including us.

Trees have fallen down in some of our derechoes and things like that, and we've planted some

trees.

But something that has not changed in this neighborhood is our sense of community.

Back when we first moved into the house, there was a letter B on the front door, and I was

like, hey, it's for Boswell, and Bree's like, no, we've got to put a better door on.

But it stood for Baker, and there was a family in our house called the Bakers, and they had

been there for 50 years.

And we found out that Mrs. Baker, when she was a widow, used to make cookies for the

neighborhood kids, and that her house, now our house, was the safe place for all the

kids in the neighborhood.

And so we thought, that's kind of a cool tradition to continue, so let's make our house that

safe place.

And so, as our kids know, we've always been one to invite people over.

We tell our kids to invite their friends over, and then no matter what's going on, our house

is a safe space.

During this time, we got to know our mayor, our alderman, things like that.

We hosted barbecue, block club parties, and things like that.

We were cultivating a Ubuntu, but we didn't know about that yet.

Nowadays, we have become, in our block, some of the longest homeowners.

22 years, something like that.

We've even convinced friends and families to buy homes in the neighborhood.

I can think of several people that we've talked into buying houses in our neighborhood.

But one of them you know, Darryl, Bree's dad, and Bree's mom moved into, on the opposite

corner.

We're at this corner, and they're at that corner, and they moved in about 10 years ago.

What's really funny is, you know, not knowing anybody but us.

And my mother-in-law, Deanna, was, I could say, an introvert of introverts.

She loved quiet walks in nature and just doing whatever.

But somehow, they made friends with everybody at their end of the block.

Everybody knows them.

So, there was even a lady who just walks in the park all the time, and they became best

buddies.

And now, she's still a valued friend of our family.

So it's funny that even the introvert family at the other end of the block is plugged in

with everybody.

So many of the people have checked on Darryl, brought him food.

You know, there's always something going on.

One day, he brought the neighbor, he called the neighbor, she was having car trouble,

and then he talked to me, and I fixed her car, and then she brought me cookies.

So, like, so, he's always setting me up with stuff like that.

Somehow, during this time, like, we became, in this 22 years, the go-to neighbors that

the other people brought their concerns to.

So, one time, I was out for a walk with one of our recently elected aldermen, and he was

new to the area, and we're walking around, and we bump into this other neighbor, David,

who lives just down the street, and he had asked me a question, and I started, and the

alderman started talking, and he said, no, no, I want to hear what Andy has to say about

this.

And I was like, but he's the alderman.

He goes, I don't know, you know.

So it's just funny how, like, we developed a sense of community and trust.

So there were things in our community over the years that inspired me or concerned me.

I started noticing things, you know, as we lived there that could use attention.

I began volunteering with neighborhood block clubs.

We had pancake fundraisers.

I started to realize the power of organizing in a group and how we had influence over things

getting better.

First thing you know, I'm the president of Rock Island Neighborhood Partners, community

caring conference, which I know Marissa is involved with now, just organizing neighborhoods,

getting neighborhoods to talk to each other, to have events to become community.

So after doing all that, you know, now I'm at a thing and I'm on a panel that's interviewing

police chief candidates.

I'm having dinner with the mayor, doing all this stuff where I'm just so plugged in, and

I'm like, oh, my gosh, this is crazy.

But it's all because we shared passion about community.

And so I would bring these things up to people.

We would talk about our ideas and we would make changes.

And so, you know, things were going well.

I have immense pride in some of the things that I've helped get going.

You know, some of the things I'm reminded of that groups that have continued on and

I just think, well, I was like a help with a spark that got that going kind of a thing.

But two things happened to me.

Two major things that happened to me on this journey of community.

The first was that a dream long held inside me was reawakened.

I always wanted to be a police officer.

Just as a kid, thought it was the cool idea to be like there, you know, I used to watch

chips, which I know I'm dating myself.

But no, I just wanted to be a police officer.

And I was inspired by the leadership in the departments that we have.

And so the more and more I talked to them, the more they said apply.

Go back to school, get your degree or law enforcement degree, things like that.

I felt like that my enthusiasm and passion for the people in the community would be an

asset in that role particularly.

The second thing that I began to realize was those in the refugee community around us.

Rock Island is a huge refugee area.

Lots and thousands and thousands of people come here from all over the world.

And so I began to see, you know, how both the people in the refugee community and those

involved in the criminal justice system who are part of our community and how to make

them fit.

I began to see places where puzzle pieces fit together, okay, needs, resources.

As I continue to go deeper to these two groups of community members, I started to feel a

sense of kinship and connection.

By day, I would volunteer at war relief, moving heavy furniture and run around with Jerry

around town, get groceries set up, so much fun.

And then at night, I go in the afternoon and I got a job by the sheriff.

I worked in the county jail.

So by day, I'd be busting my butt physically.

And then in the afternoon, I'd go in and spend time with people who were having their worst

days ever.

At a minimum of 40 hours a week, I was there a lot over time.

So I felt like I was living there too.

I didn't feel like I was better than the people there.

I felt like I understood them.

They were my neighbors.

I treated them with respect and looked for small ways to bless them.

Remember, they're having the worst day of their life.

I mean, nobody wakes up in jail and says, this is the greatest experience, five stars.

So some dumb things that you would think that I did, but it made a huge difference.

For example, every day at a certain time of day, everyone's allowed to clean their cells

in their rooms.

And so every day, the officers come in and they fill up the mop water and they give them

a mop head that's not been washed in six months.

And they give them the garbage bags and all that stuff.

Well, that thing kind of bothered me a little bit.

So then what I started doing is the weeks that I was assigned to each of those areas,

I would wash the mop heads and dry them.

And then sometimes I put, which we weren't supposed to do this, but I put a little bit

of bleach in the mop water, make it smell really fresh.

You would think I gave someone like a pizza or something.

Those guys would get so excited about the fact that now they had fresh mop heads and

the floor smell like bleach that smelled clean.

Hallelujah.

Like it was a big deal.

Whenever I did laundry, I would pick out the best jumpsuits and the towels and things like

that so that when the guys got their stuff, it wasn't all ratty.

Little things, but it made a big difference.

I was frustrated though that my ability to serve these people in the situation was limited

to feeding them, clothing them, giving them mops, right?

I kind of one day, so in the jail, the old part of the jail is like a big circle or octagon

kind of thing.

And so there's like all these blocks.

And when you work there, you're in the middle of all that.

So when I came down to do my rounds and I'm looking at A through G and I'm just like,

what am I doing here?

What can I do for these people other than keep them fed and happy, I guess, best I can

every day, but I'm not making a difference in their lives.

So that was when, about the time that I had the opportunity to jump into probation and

became a probation officer.

What a difference.

The power to help people change their lives.

I could get right in the situation with people.

I could encourage them, advise them, advocate for them.

Not only could I just say something to someone in jail, but like now that I'm working with

them, I can make phone calls, show up for places, things like that.

One of the men that I met in the jail was a trustee for a while.

And what a trustee is, is there's someone who's obviously trusted to cook or clean

or whatever and be part of a team.

Those guys get some extra perks and benefits.

So obviously if you're willing to work 40 hours a week in a jail for little to no pay

at all, you must have decent work ethic or whatever, right?

Well anyway, I met one of these guys and he was dealing with an issue that had to do with

substances and he was in there.

And a few years later, now as a probation officer, he ends up in front of me again.

And I think, you know, what's going on with this guy?

And so he tells me where he's at with things.

And it turns out he had some issues with substance abuse over the years.

He kind of had an epiphany moment.

This is not what I should be doing.

And since that time, had become a sponsor and started working at a treatment center

helping people like way more than I ever could as a probation officer.

And I was so impressed by that.

And I was like, well, what are you doing here with me?

Well, then I look and he's got a three-year-old case involving something.

Well, what happened from that time until the three years that's gone by until now when

he's standing in front of me?

And he'd been doing all this stuff in the community and helping people.

If somebody needed an encouragement or a ride to a group meeting or something like that,

he was doing this stuff.

And so it just kind of bothered me.

Why are we still prosecuting a case against a guy who had drugs who is now helping literally

hundreds of people?

So it just kind of bugged me.

And so one day he had a court date coming up.

And I called the state's attorney.

And I said, what's the deal with this case?

This guy's doing all these cool things, helping people.

Why are we still trying to prosecute him when we've got other people that have done really

dumb things and we've already let them go?

And she said, well, tell me what you think.

And so I gave her a 20-minute explanation of why I feel like we should just let this

thing drop and he should be doing what he's doing because it's amazing in the community.

And she said, well, I appreciate the feedback, whatever.

Well, a couple of months goes by and I see his court date coming up again.

And he's still getting prosecuted for this case.

So I called the state's attorney again, except this time I talked to one of the assistant

state's attorneys.

And I went through the whole rigamarole again and I said, why are we wasting our time trying

to throw this guy in prison and make him a convicted felon when he's doing all these

amazing things in the community?

And what's the point?

And she said, this bothers me too.

Let me check on it.

That was on a Friday.

Then on a Monday, it bothered me all weekend.

On Monday morning, she called me and said, I talked to the boss who you had talked to

previously.

She gave me the go ahead to go ahead and put this guy on a special 12-month thing where

after that everything goes away like it never happened.

And she said, but because you've advocated for this guy, I'm going to let you call him.

Not his attorney, not the state's attorney, not the judge, whatever in court.

You go ahead and tell him what you did.

And I'm like, well, I just felt it was the right thing to do.

So I called Justin and I tell him that this is all getting dropped and whatever as long

as he does the things he's already doing.

And I hear like a thumping noise and something and I'm like, what's going on?

And then I think I heard him say something like, I just fell out of my chair.

And he was, and Justin is a very tall person.

So I got to hear what the sound of a very tall, like rock-sized person falling out of

a chair sounds like.

And I was like, are you all right?

He said, yep, yep.

And I said, from that point on, we had 12 months.

He hit all the things.

He went back to school for college and all of that stuff got dropped and he now works

at a treatment center, continues to.

And he's kind of one of my guys that when I have somebody who's struggling, I put him

in contact with him or he'll give me a recommendation on where somebody should go.

And so he's still doing that thing.

And just by me doing that one little thing, it's like it expanded.

So it's like, it's like I walked into the room and this was like a giant thousand piece

puzzle and there was a couple pieces missing.

And all I did was walk up like grandpa used to do.

He'd have the last piece in his pocket and he'd hide it from everybody.

This is grandpa tweet and grandpa tweet would walk in the room and snap that last piece

in.

So it's almost like I got to be the privilege of walking in and the puzzle was already laid

out and I just put the last piece in and like, wow, except now do I not only see that big

picture altogether, the puzzle keeps expanding.

It's the connections, the outreach, the things that it does goes out in the community.

So you don't know what your simple thing will do.

How many people will those that you have blessed impact?

The children, the future children of your neighbors?

Let me share a fact with you.

Studies have shown studies.

This isn't an Andy fact that I made up.

This is studies.

When someone in addiction becomes sober and healthy, their sobriety positively impacts

seven generations of their family.

That sounds biblical, like literally, right?

So when you love your neighbor, when you worship God by loving your neighbor, your love will

literally grow and expand to affect people you will never know and that will never know

you.

I think this is kind of mind blowing.

Take a moment to ponder that.

This is where I'm going to borrow from Tony for a moment and say, it's not about doing

but being.

Worship God by being a good neighbor.

I have experienced my greatest ever joy in serving others.

Being and encouraging my neighbors to move forward is worship that I can't contain inside.

This is a side effect of worship.

It transfers to those around you.

It's contagious.

I'm kind of borrowing from Greg's first sermon about worship.

I liken it to the feeling of watching your kids or your friends or your family open their

presents on Christmas morning or on their birthdays.

That is what it feels like inside of me when I get to serve people in the community.

It's amazing.

Imagine living a life where we get to experience this all the time.

This is worshiping through community.

This is Ubuntu.

So what is Ubuntu?

Why do you keep talking about it?

Why is it on your shirt?

By the way, Abby, yeah, it's on my license plate too.

Abby made this for me.

Yeah, brief sister.

Recently I was reading, those of you who know me know I love to read.

Recently while reading an autobiographical collection by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who

was a contemporary and a good friend of Nelson Mandela, I was introduced to this philosophy

of Ubuntu.

I am a person through other people.

My humanity is tied to yours.

Wikipedia, when I looked it up, now there is an Ubuntu that's like a software or something

which was endorsed by Desmond Tutu and whatever it was like a thing, but the Ubuntu I'm talking

about is what inspired that.

It's a South African philosophy which teaches that all humans are deeply interconnected

with respect to its foundations.

It asks us to look outward, acknowledging the humanity in others.

When we do this, our behavior transforms.

It's impossible to mistreat others if we recognize their inherent value.

We don't want to hurt our own bodies.

Tutu explained it this way.

This is not the Wikipedia.

This is Desmond Tutu's version.

One of the sayings in our community is Ubuntu, the essence of being human.

Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't exist as a human being in

isolation.

It speaks about our interconnectedness.

We think of ourselves far too frequently just as individuals, separate from one another.

Whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole world.

When you do well, it spreads out.

It is for the whole of humanity.

I got a million stories.

I'm going to try to only tell you a couple more.

There was a police officer, a sheriff's deputy that I spent a lot of time with.

Before I started working there, I did an internship.

It was 12 weeks.

I had to quit my job.

I spent 40 hours a week as a volunteer intern with the sheriff's department.

There was one particular officer who I spent a couple of shifts with and just really, really

kind-hearted, be the mature adult in the situation and just handle things in such a cool way.

At the end of my internship, by the prompting of my wife, the smarter half of my brain,

I wrote thank you notes to everybody that I spent a shift with.

It was eight hours or whatever.

Some guys spent 16 hours, 24, whatever.

It was a lot.

I wrote thank you notes.

I thought about how to make each one individual and special because each person is different.

I wrote an encouraging note about this guy's integrity.

His name is Mike.

His integrity and just how he inspired me to do the right thing and his faith was evident

in what he did and whatever.

That was 10, 11 years ago now.

Last summer, we're in court and he happens to be the assigned deputy for court.

There was a guy causing a ruckus in the courtroom.

He got escorted out and Mike stood with him out in the lobby and got him kind of calmed

down.

I finished up what I was doing.

When I go to court, I'm all dressed up.

I look like an attorney or something, fancy.

I look important.

People sometimes think I am and then they're like, oh, is that the federal prosecutor?

No, I'm just the probation officer.

I went out into the hallway after I got done advocating for a client in front of the judge.

Mike stopped me and I said something to him like, hey, I really appreciate whatever.

He said, I appreciate your professionalism and how you handle and you care about clients

and whatever.

I was like, oh, that's cool.

I'm like, well, thanks because you inspire me too.

He says, but I got to tell you something else.

I was like, yeah.

He goes, do you remember when you were the intern in our department and we rode around

together and then you wrote me the notes at the thing?

I said, well, I guess, yeah.

I don't remember what I wrote.

He said, this is what he said.

Now, this might mess me up a little bit.

He said, every time I get my uniform on to go to work, I look at that note that you gave

me and it inspires me to go out and be the best officer that I can be.

He said, thank you for that.

I was just like, oh my gosh, it just about melted right there.

Just that one thing that I did for him, how many people does he come in contact with every

day?

As the police are pulling people over, whatever, and knowing that he's got that thing in his

brain of I'm taking God with me.

I'm honoring my neighbor.

I'm doing the right thing.

I have integrity and all this stuff.

Just powerful.

All I did was just say an encouraging word.

Going back to Greg's first message saying that worship is too small for just us.

Worship is way too big for that.

In Mark 12, Jesus says, the most important commandment is to love the Lord your God with

all your passion, prayer, intelligence, and energy.

That's the message version.

The second commandment was equally as important.

Love others as well as you love yourself.

There is no other commandment that ranks with these.

The greatest commandment, love your God, love your neighbor.

Loving your neighbor with all your, just think about that, loving your neighbor with all

your passion and energy.

I think I understand this.

Reading about Ubuntu, making that connection, made me realize the puzzles kind of fit together

for me.

At a recent training for work, this was like in October, we had a very inspiring speaker.

It was a specialty court for drug abuse and stuff training.

He frequently referenced a book that researched the war on drugs in America.

Of course, if you know me again, I went and checked the book out and read it after I got

back from conference.

One of the most profound truths that I have taken from this was the opposite of addiction

is not sobriety.

The opposite of addiction is not sobriety.

The opposite of addiction is connection.

I believe that everybody has a God-shaped hole and a neighbor-shaped hole in their heart.

When we lose our connection with our friends and our family or even God, we sometimes try

to use artificial substitutes.

We mask or numb our pain with unhealthy relationships, substances, activities, working too much,

things like that.

But we can't replace the needed connection that we have with anything but a real relationship.

We are meant to be in a community.

Think about when you go somewhere and you're around people you don't know.

It's one of the things that we do.

I feel like when I was writing this, I felt like this is a Seinfeld scenario.

Why is it we always look for this little common ground thing to talk to somebody about?

Bree and I were in Decorah, Iowa one time on a bike trip.

We were sitting there having a drink or something.

I was wearing a Bix shirt.

The guy next to us says, oh, you're from the Quad Cities.

I'm like, huh.

He's like, hey, did you guys know about the waterfall hike and whatever?

Then we ended up having this 20-minute conversation with this guy just because he connected with

us with the Quad Cities.

He told us about where all the cool hiking spots were for the waterfalls, which we went

on and they were awesome.

But it's that scenario where we go somewhere and we're like, oh, hey, you're a Cardinals

fan.

You're a Cubs fan.

What kind of pizza do you like or whatever?

We just have that itch to kind of do that and make that connection with people.

So there's another place in the community that I see and hear and experience the sense

of Ubuntu community frequently.

This is going to make a few people uncomfortable because I'm going to talk about a bar.

I'm talking about Radical Effect.

Oh, no.

Okay.

All right.

Oh, no.

So Radical Effect.

Those of you that are from Rock Island, it's at the top of the hill in what we call the

College Hill area.

There's Happy Joe's and there's a new nightclub on the corner that's like Wine and Spirits.

Then there's a comic book shop.

There's a barber.

The hardware store is right there.

So it's at the top of the hill, middle of town.

But there's a community sense at Radical Effect.

Everyone shares and encourages one another.

The community considers it a safe place.

It's one of the places that I like to go because I know that I'm not going to run into conflict.

People just aren't going to be arguing or fighting or whatever.

I wish more churches were like this.

It's kind of ironic.

I know.

But at Radical, everyone is welcome as long as you aren't being disruptive.

And honestly, I've never seen anything happen like that.

They do fundraisers for needs and families, for the schools.

We have art fairs and food trucks and celebrations and community connections happen there.

I see aldermen, congressmen, mayors, you know, like all these different people having drinks

and sitting and talking.

I have made so many friends through spending time there.

And it's almost like it's holy ground.

The members of the community protect it and keep it as that.

Even though it belongs to Rich, if you know Rich, I'm pretty sure everyone who hangs out

there regularly feels some sense of ownership and responsibility to keep it that way, to

keep it safe.

If only more churches were like the community at Radical.

Ubuntu is also a philosophy of reconciliation and forgiveness that expresses respect for

one's dignity irrespective of what that person has done.

Those are Desmond Tutu's words.

Tutu seeks restorative justice to give opportunity for the healing of both the oppressed and

the oppressor as children of God.

So I have one more story for you.

This guy's name is Al.

And Al is an older guy, long career of criminal activity behind him, has a reputation.

Well Al is getting older.

Al has a good set of skills when it comes to like plumbing, electrical, HVAC, things

like that.

But he's getting older, his arthritis is bothering him, things like that.

Well I had Al on probation.

It was really hard to find him a job because of that kind of stuff.

But smart guy knew all of these things that I wish I knew.

Well one day a puzzle piece clicked in my head and I said to him, you know, there's

a program called Youth Build in the community where older people teach skills to young people

who are trying to learn a trade or whatever.

So they redo houses and stuff.

And so I said to Al, I said, what do you think about working for a place where you don't

physically have to do the work anymore and you can have these young guys with, they're

not aching backs, do all this stuff and you just teach them the right way to do it and

you get paid really well.

And he said, I don't know, I never thought, I never had an opportunity like that before.

And I said, well, is it okay if I name drop you and I go talk to the guy?

And he said, well sure, that's fine with me.

Well I met with the director at Youth Build, had a conversation about Al, and he said,

bring him in.

So this is one of the most mind blowing experiences I've ever had was these two like retired age

guys, one guy working with this Youth Build for a long time and this guy with the reputation

his whole life of being the criminal.

And I bring them together and they start asking each other questions and they have this 20

minute interview and I wanted so badly to be able to record this because it was the

coolest scenario.

And so the first guy, the boss asks him the questions and then he says, well yeah, I have

this certificate and this skill and this certificate and this skill and this thing and this thing

and this thing, but what about my time spent in prison?

I've been to federal prison, I've been to state prison.

And he says, that's exactly what I'm looking for because I want you to be able to teach

these kids the things that you've done and the experiences that you've had so that they

know that this is a better path rather than what you did before.

So fast forward, so I had to have this thing and I'm like, I don't know how it goes.

A couple weeks later I see Al and I ask him how things are going on or anything.

Well I think that was like a year ago or more.

I see a story in the paper and here's a group of kids working at YouthBuild and here's the

boss, his name's Rufus, and here's Al in the picture.

So I sent that picture around at work and I said, look at what Al is doing now.

And of course the response I get was, well I hope he's not teaching the kids bad things,

you know.

So I was like, all right, fine, you don't have the same viewpoint I do.

No, here's a guy that a year ago I connected, whatever, and he's getting paid really good

money to teach these kids skills, drywall, electrical, plumbing.

Like I said, he was certified in all these things, skills that he learned while he was

in prison in the work program.

But when he got out he was licensed and did this stuff.

I think he told me one time he put like all the gas meters in downtown Davenport when

he worked at MidAmerican or something like that.

So yeah, so here's this picture and like I said, I got to be in that moment.

It was like, like I said, Christmas morning, watching people open gifts and it's always

the perfect gift.

It's not like, oh thanks, another sweater.

It's like, look, the Transformers or look, my favorite video game or look, the coolest

book that I've been wanting.

I got to be, I felt so undeserving of being in that scenario in that moment and watching

these two guys connect and knowing that restoration was happening.

I can't even begin to explain how it felt.

It was just the coolest thing.

But knowing now, seeing the paper, the story in the paper and knowing that he's still plugged

in with them and that he's mentoring youth.

Nobody else was going to give him that opportunity, but something, somebody was bugging me in the

back of my brain and said, you need to make that connection.

I don't know who that was.

Maybe the Holy Spirit.

So 1 Corinthians 12, 12 through 26, you guys probably recognize this.

Body and diversity in the body.

Just as a body, though one has many parts, but all its many parts form one body.

So it is with Christ.

For we were all baptized in one spirit.

So as to form one body, whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free, we were all given the spirit,

one spirit to drink.

Even so the body is not made up of one part, but of many.

Now if the foot should say, because I'm not a hand, I do not belong to the body.

It would not for that reason, stop being part of the body.

And if the ear should say, because I'm not an eye, I do not belong part of the body.

It would not be for that reason to stop, it would not for that reason stop being a part

of the body.

If the whole body was an eye, where would the sense of hearing be?

If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?

But in fact, God has placed the parts of the body, every one of them, just as he wanted

them to be.

If they were all one part, where would the body be?

As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, I don't need you.

The head cannot say to the feet, I don't need you.

On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable.

And the parts of the body that we think are less honorable, we treat with special honor.

While our presentable parts need no special treatment, but God has put the body together,

giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in

the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.

If one part suffers, every part suffers with it.

If one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

We belong to each other and we are one body.

We just want to know where and how we fit.

We're always trying to figure out if we're the eye, if we're the ear, the foot, the hand,

and who the other people are, to find our connection with them.

But no matter what our part, we are all the body.

We are community.

We are Ubuntu.

Part of this is being proud of each other and not being jealous.

Cal once asked me if I was jealous because Cal, our 18-year-old, can do all these amazing

musical things in like top 5% of their class and all that stuff.

And Cal said, are you jealous of me because I do all these things?

And then it kind of clicked.

And I said, no, I'm not jealous, but I am very proud of you.

We should be proud of each other because we're the body.

We shouldn't be jealous, but we should be proud of each other.

I can't do the same thing so that I shouldn't be jealous.

I should be proud that that person is doing that thing.

We are the community of God together.

Ubuntu is the joy of knowing others and being known, of feeling interconnected and part

of something bigger.

Your part in the kingdom of God.

Ubuntu is finding your purpose and fulfillment in the community that God has created for

you to be a part of.

Living in community is a response of worship to God.

Thank you.