Ryan Brunsink
Why I'm Heading to Camden
Hello All! Amigos and familia, welcome. Blogs are kinda creepy, but hey, how else would I keep everyone informed?
Just wanted to start off by filling you in on my plans for the next year— what I’m doing and why (you will likely ask why). I’m heading to Camden, NJ (across the river from Philly) on September 5 to volunteer with a program called Mission Year. The program places young adults in the inner city with an opportunity to experience the Kingdom of God in a unique way— serving, loving, and living among the urban poor. What we do: Love God and Love People.
Fresh out of college with a degree in economics and religious studies, and more than enough idealism to drown you in hope, I decided to apply for the program. Let me tell you why I’m doing this:
I am eager to serve with Mission Year because I believe in relational, holistic ministry. I think we can see in Jesus a God and Savior who mends the broken, reconciles the outcast, and brings about transformation in people by loving them and meeting them where they are. The type of work I would like to do is not solely evangelistic, but involves extending mercy and practical help to those most in need. I want to learn about the common and pressing problems faced by the urban poor and hopefully to seek in some capacity to be a part of the solution. Certainly our spiritual needs are the deepest, but as Christ showed us, often meeting physical and emotional needs is a part of the fullness of the Gospel and the whole restoration of a person or community. I know I will learn an extraordinary amount about myself, others, and God during this year in the city of Camden, and I am thrilled about where it may lead me in the future—whether toward graduate school, ministry, policy, development, or some combination of these.
Hopefully, this gives you an idea of where I’m coming from. I know this— I have a heart for the broken and a desire to live out the Gospel through the reconciliation and restoration of people and communities. I think Mission Year will provide a great opportunity to learn, serve, and grow in this next year. Pray for me please. Check back for updates, stories, rants, political rhetoric, and poetic brilliance. Peace and Grace to you.
About Mission Year
Mission Year is a year long urban ministry program focused on Christian service and discipleship. We take teams of young people, place them in an area of need, and help them to serve people and create community. We are committed to the command of Jesus to “love God and love people,” by placing the needs of our neighbors first and developing committed disciples of Christ with a heart for the poor. Learn more about our first year program…
Ryan Brunsink's Blog
an excerpt from solitude. / Dec 16, 04:10 PM
(the following was written a few weeks ago, while on a solitude retreat filled with silence and reflection.)
agitation.
It’s like I know where life is found, but I won’t move to obtain it. I’ve been handed a glass of living water, and I thirst, and yet I do not drink.
Why? Why? I’m so frustrated—with God, with myself. Why can’t I live? I know that life—satisfying, abundant life is only found in God, and yet I can’t live. Not that I can’t live morally, or even against the cultural and social norms, but I still can’t live.
I’m not alive. I don’t meet the creator. I don’t commune. I don’t listen. I don’t love.
But I want to. Desperately. My soul is restless—meandering about the things of God, but never resting in Him.
God, that you would press down on this lump of clay and do something with it.
Am I just impatient? Or am I not doing my part? It’s like I want to do something frantically to feel the presence of God, but I’m paralyzed before I even attempt.
So am I to accept this paralysis, to sit and lie silently until God speaks movement into me? Or am I to fight it with everything I’ve got? I really don’t know. And I’m tired of not knowing and not moving.
_______________
and peace.
I started walking around the lake. Quickly, I became aware of what I had been feeling—frustration, agitation, paralyzed in my faith. So, I began to look for symbols of this feeling. The first fifteen minutes or so I didn’t find much of anything that spoke to me—only intensifying my agitation. “I’m not learning anything.” I have no problem with silence; I’m not having trouble focusing, and yet nothing significant is going on in me.
As I kept walking I came upon a tree with one branch that had almost all of its bark stripped away. I began to look at this branch and the few remaining pieces of bark—like flakes of skin that had yet to be shed. I contemplated this image.
I felt like it was an adequate symbol for me. The bare branch represented frustration with myself and with God—the lack of movement in my faith. But God began to teach me through this image.
He was saying, “You just want green and growth, but I need you to become bare. I am stripping you of your skin, making you bare.” So I plucked one of the remaining pieces of bark off of the limb, placed it in my coat picket, and continued on.
Eventually, I came to a four-way crossing. I stopped and turned in a circle to look around and contemplate my direction. As I turned, I stopped as I saw that one corner of the forest was covered in red plant growth. There was so little green, yellow, or brown; it was striking. It was all covered in red. Naturally, I was brought to the thought of Christ’s blood, and a sense of peace came over me. Even in the midst of my agitation and frustration, Christ’s blood covers all. When I’m being stripped bare, and there’s no green growth on me, Christ’s blood covers all. The sentimentality was comforting, but it left just as quickly as it had swept over me. Ahh, a sense of fullness felt and then released.
Not quite sure what to make of these fleeting truths, I walked through the red brush toward one tree that was covered in bight red leaves. It was beautiful. The sun was shining through it. I got to the base of the tree and looked up through the leaves. I decided to take a red leaf as another symbol of what God is teaching me. I grabbed a curled dead branch from the ground, and used it to pull a red branch down toward me. I plucked the first leaf and found it to be not so beautiful. So, I proceeded to pinch another off of the branch. As I examined it, I realized that none of these leaves were beautiful. In fact, they were all rather dull and faded, with tears and rips and holes in them—patches of discoloration, parts eaten away. And then it struck me, the tree was indeed so beautiful, but not in and of itself, only as the sun shone through it. The sun lit it up, all of its discoloration and flaws and made it beautiful. This gave me some sense of closure. I felt as though God was saying, “Yes in all your crap, I will make you beautiful.” “Not you, Me.” “It’s My beauty, My glory that makes you wonderful.” “Not your successes, not your determined effort to find me.” “It’s My revelation of Myself.” “And it’s through the blood—the red that covers all of you, all of your imperfections in the times of bareness and the times of lush green growth.”
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choose, ye chosen. / Dec 16, 12:51 PM
I choose God because God chose me.
Joshua twenty-four paraphrased, and thoughts:
Joshua summons the tribes to present themselves before God—to recenter themselves, refocus, to renew the Covenant. Joshua reminds the people how God took Abraham and made his offspring a nation, how he was with them through history, proving his presence, his love, his resilience, his faithfulness to his people over and over again.
And then Joshua exhorts the people—Put away these other gods—these lovers you run to. Stop cheating on YHWH, our God. Choose. Choose this day whom you will serve.
The people answer, “Far be it that we should forsake God who has loved and pursued us relentlessly. We remember.” And Joshua reminds them, “You are unfaithful; God is jealous for your affections. Can you really treasure Him above all else? He can’t take it when you so quickly run to other lovers.”
The people cry out, “No, but we will serve the Lord.”
Joshua—“You are witness against yourselves that you have chosen the Lord, to serve Him.”
People—“Yes, we are witnesses.”
Joshua—“Then put away these other lovers you run to and incline your heart toward God.”
People—“The Lord our God we will serve, and his voice we will obey.”
God is jealous. Righteous Anger and Love one in the same. Pure. Jealous for our affections, for our reciprocation. Will you return my love? My love that went to a cross for you? My love that took on hell for your fulfillment, your freedom, for your hand and heart? This is no petty jealousy. We’re not talking high school drama here. This is the divine romance. This is real and raw. God longs for us to long for Him. It hurts because we’re whores. We’ll take the embrace of so much less. Maybe we’re scared of real love. God chose you. Will you choose Him? I will incline my heart. “I do.”
from. to. / Oct 1, 02:31 PM
First post—hope you’ve been anticipating it.
So I arrived in Camden a few short weeks ago. Things have been fast paced thus far; we are just now starting to get in a routine. Shortly after setting our bags down, we set off for Atlanta for five days of camping and orientation. We heard some great speakers who challenged us to begin to shift our thinking in many regards. Charlottesville’s own Josh Kauffman-Horner left me anticipating some great shifts in perspective over the next year. And here they are:
FROM a cultural standard of fun… TO a biblical standard of joy.
What’s the first question someone asks you after you get back from some outing or event? “Did you have fun?” Right? We’ve got to shift our thinking as followers of Christ to a standard of joy. Fun does not equal joy. “For the [fun] set before him, he endured the cross”!? Nope. Fun is great, but it can be a cultural-idol. Fun won’t get me through this year. Joy is of Christ.
FROM compartmentalized health… TO holistic health.
Part of my wanting to live in an urban impoverished community is due to a desire in me to see communities and individuals restored to ‘health’. We’re trying to produce healthy communities. Doctors want to ‘fix’ you biologically, psychiatrists psychologically, evangelists spiritually. We must look at a person or community as a whole, not just as a bunch of independent compartments. You don’t mend a soul by providing health care, but reciprocally you don’t mend a community of broken social systems by preaching from the street corner. Jesus often met peoples’ physical or emotional needs in order to break down the walls concealing their spiritual brokenness. Let’s mend in entirety.
FROM expectation… TO trust.
Expectations often give us tunnel vision. The messiah was expected to be an earthly king. Don’t miss Jesus because of set expectations. Instead, trust what God may put before you, even if it looks nothing like you may have anticipated. This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t lean on what God has already revealed to us as truth, but that we shouldn’t create a pre-formulated equation by which God must work in and around us. Be ready to learn in your uncertainty.
FROM comfort… TO struggle.
The good life is the comfortable life, or so we think. But we all know the truth is that there is treasure in the struggle. You don’t (attempt to) hike the AT just to chill at a campfire at night. We must learn to find ‘comfort’ in the struggle to live faithfully, loving God and our neighbors, rather than seeking comfort in and of itself. We learn and grow through the struggle.
So, this post is quickly becoming a novel (or rather a spiritual self-help book) which I did not intend. Don’t you loathe self-help books? Nothing frustrates me more than Joel Osteen. BUT I believe these are some things that the Spirit has been leading me to search throughout this year. Hopefully they challenge you as well. Stay tuned for a synopsis of the past few weeks. Peace to you.
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