6/3-6/10

Sunday, Aaron had to get up at around 6:30 to continuing helping our friend’s church lead worship, so needless to say, he was long gone by the time Jesse, Ryan and I woke from our slumber. Ryan asked us to take him to a coffee shop to finish reading Velvet Elvis, then Jesse and I picked Lindsey up and headed to Watershed. After Transit (the name of the Sunday morning service), there was a Threshold (the name of the leadership group at Watershed) meeting that we stayed for. It was an interesting discussion addressing the situation of diversity both in Watershed as well as the community at large. Lisa, from 24/7, as well as several other intelligent folks of varying races and ethnicities helped us understand what it is like to be a minority in America. We discussed what steps ‘A, B and C’ are for us as individuals and as a community of believers to begin to break down the walls of segregation that have been built up over the generations. Much depth could be gone into here on this topic, but I will spare the wordiness as I am confident that the outcome of that discussion will be slowly materialized and written about in dates soon to come. We returned home from Watershed to find Aaron half asleep, which we did not hesitate to disturb, being excited to see him. Getting woken up two goofy guys jumping in his bed, Aaron was quickly reminded of a lesson we have all had to learn which is that we can’t hold anything too tightly for ourselves, even our time (and our beds).
Monday was a great day and around 10 in the morning we heard a knock at our door. It was our neighbor Kevin wanting to hang out. He was bored because he is still unemployed so he came in and hung out for a while. We all had the day off so we went over and chilled at Kevin’s house for awhile as well. We still can’t believe how quickly we are being let in to the lives of our neighbors. We were excited today because we were going to get to see our friend Andrew who had a fortunate layover in Charlotte on his way back to Lynchburg. As some of you may know we lost a very close friend and amazing servant of Christ recently. Her name was Emily and we continue to wrestle with God as we begin to heal and look for his purpose in this. We met Andrew only 5 months ago as he and Emily had met and fallen in love and were going to be married this summer. God has expedited our friendship and we have come to love and respect him greatly. Sadly his plane came in late and we didn’t get to see him so we went and practiced instead.
Tuesday was another great day, which ended with having Kevin, his girlfriend Coby, and her son Budda over for dinner. We had a good time hanging out, telling stories, and getting to know them better. Wednesday and Thursday were days full of work and band practice because we actually have show planned for Saturday. Truth be told we are still making the transition to a three piece but this show is for the youth center Jesse helped start so we were trying to pull something together in time. Also on Thursday our good friend T.J. arrived. He was on his way back to Lynchburg but had decided to grace us with his presence for a few days. TJ is a very smart and very funny fellow and we honestly prefer having our house full as much as possible. We had a great time showing the TEEJ around the Queen City and as we began hashing out our songs in our practice space TJ took his own midnight tour of the city on our moped. Our practice space is located on the other opposing outskirt of town about twenty blocks south and ten blocks west. Charlotte is fairly large but its actual downtown (which, they call Uptown) is only twenty or so blocks in each direction. We live on the northeast corner of Uptown and our practice space is on the Southwest and one of our greatest pleasures has become the bike ride to and from practice. The ride back is cathartic as Charlotte is absolutely striking at night and there is something so surreal about flying through the heart of an empty city after midnight with the sky backlight by the glow of skyscrapers. Flying past buildings, jumping off curbs, and dashing through red lights…oh the little things.

Friday began a weekend for the history books of our lives here in Charlotte. Many of you may be familiar with a rather large and tragic event that has recently taken place in the lives of Aaron, Jesse, and I which was the death of a very dear friend of ours, Emily. While this has been one of the tougher things in any of our lives to come to grasps with, the opportunities and memories that have followed in the wake are nothing short of irreplaceable. It was a normal Friday for all of us here until about 5:00 when Emily’s mother and younger sister (from here on out to be referred to as “Mama Rund” and Julie) got in town for the weekend. I can safely say that words would only fall short if I tried to explain how excited and full of joy we were to see them and know we would have several days to spend with both of them. I think Mama Rund had mixed feelings about being here especially when she heard within the first few minutes of being here that hearing gunshots in our neighborhood is not all that uncommon. This bit of information was probably exposed too soon, but as with everyone else, by the end of the weekend she was in love with the neighborhood, or house, our church, the community, and especially “Franco” (one of TJs nicknames). That Friday night, we all went to movies in the park, an event that Watershed puts on the second Friday of every month during the summer. While I’m thinking about it, if you haven’t checked it out yet, the website for Watershed is www.watershedcharlotte.com, much of what we talk about and have been involved in can also be checked out there, it’s just another good resource for looking into the lives those of us living here in Charlotte. Back to the good stuff, after the movie we all grabbed some dinner and retired for the night. The next morning we all got up and those of us in the band went and packed the truck up for a show we were going to be playing later that night in Roxboro, NC. On the way back, Jesse and I stopped at a little corner store/daily yard sale because we saw a stack of mattresses there. After talking to the guy for a few minutes, we left with five mattresses in and on my car for ten dollars each. We had been trying to find mattresses to fit our five empty bunks and this seemed the perfect solution, so now no one has an excuse not to visit us. The whole crew was kind enough to come with us to our show and make the experience even more community filled than we were anticipating. We played at the Youth for Christ warehouse that Jesse interned for this summer. Those we love dearly at The Warehouse were nice enough to invite us up to play for their end of school celebration. While we were there, Andrew, Emily’s fiancé, met up with us to spend the rest of the weekend with us as well. Andrew seemed the perfect finishing touch to our crew and we were more than excited to see what the weekend had in store for us. After playing the show, we grabbed some dinner and headed off on our three and a half hour journey home at 11:00 pm. When we arrived back in Charlotte, we wasted no time scurrying off to our beds to get some much needed rest.
Sunday morning, we all left together for Transit up at Watershed. Jesse played drums this Sunday and Matt O’Neil spoke. They began a new series called ‘Happy?’ and I really encourage that you listen to this particular message (June 10) on the Watershed website. I would love to go into detail about it and tell you why you should listen to it, but I will simply say that you will not be disappointed if you do listen to it and you would be missing out on a great example of what attracts us so much to this particular community of believers in Charlotte if you decide not to listen. My apologies for the shameless plug, but we all left Transit with an overwhelming joy and excitement and I just want to share it with as many people as possible. Back again to the story, after church we decided to go for a bike ride around the city, so Lindsey, Julie, TJ, Andrew, Aaron, Jesse, and I all set out on our bikes and our moped to explore the city. I think this is when it really hit us how amazing the group of people we were surrounded with truly was. We all cruised around the city laughing, singing, talking, and talking up several lanes of traffic just enjoying the beauty of friends, the city, and a much needed day of rest. We ended up at the Carolina Panthers’ football stadium where we took and break and laid in the grass. There is something surreal and even transcendent at times about taking part in God’s creation while surrounded by some of the more massive and extravagant structures man has erected. Before long, without realizing it, we had all fallen asleep, exhausted from the weekend. After we woke from our nap, we headed back home and got ready for Italians. Italians is something that is done almost every Sunday evening and is just a little dinner party that a lot of Watershedders get together for to enjoy an evening of good food, conversation, and laughter. This particular Sunday it was at our good friends Blair and Jonathan’s house. I personally did not know them very well, and several people with us did not know them at all, so we all had a very good time getting to know them better and thoroughly enjoyed their hospitality and spaghetti. After returning home, we sat and talked a bit then proceeded to bed for yet another much needed night’s sleep.
-Jeremiah

5/25-6/2

I don’t even know where to begin; the last week has been so unbelievable. I don’t even know a better explanation than to say it was ridiculous. Friday was a details day of tying up the loose ends of preparing our house for “maximal hospitality”. As the day drew to a close Carlos, our neighborhood mentor and close friend, dropped by (which isn’t hard since he lives next door) to hang out for a while as we ate dinner and began to talk about the climate of our neighborhood; mostly minority, low income, and broken families. Carlos has been a counselor for most of his life and even though he is not officially in practice currently, he truly is the counselor for the whole neighborhood. He is truly a person of peace and of great favor in the entire community. He is a humble networker who constantly carries a smile and gentle spirit about him. Many times since we have been here Carlos has said “We are all broken”, but I think on Friday it really hit us for the first time. Many of my greatest struggles and largest areas of brokenness are not the kinds that are obvious to others. I have found this growing an insipid amount of pride in my own heart. Anything in me of value is because of God’s grace and not just the salvific kind but also every condition by which I thrive. It is only by God’s grace that I was born to Godly parents who provided my needs and placed me in circumstances that did not readily precondition me for certain addictive and destructive behaviors. Of course I am not saying that we do not make our own choices but only grace has delivered me from a life entangled in the garbage of this world. It brings a whole new fervor to Paul’s words when He states that he can boast in nothing but God. We are all broken until God comes to finally and ultimately redeem our entire being and I am constantly reminding myself of this fact.
Late Friday afternoon a huge opportunity presented itself to us. Carlos came to us and told us Jared needed some help completing his art studio. Carlos owns a warehouse (along with several other investors) about three blocks from our house in the center of our little Optimist Park neighborhood. This warehouse is mostly filled with artists and their art studios so needless to say it is filled with some of the most unique people I have ever met. I will have to tell you more of this environment and its content later but for now just think of a grown-up Sesame Street and your pretty close. Jared is certainly one of the more interesting people I have ever met. Jared can do it all but he is known for a product or “medium”, as artists call it, which he has created and patented. He creates these amazing works of art all over the city and has made quite a few art-cars that can be frequently seen around Charlotte. His work is amazing and he always uses his art to beautify practical objects, basically he stays really busy (check his work out at www.skratchworks.com). He was hoping to hire just Jeremiah to work for him and help him finish his studio because its getting hot and the warehouse is not air-conditioned. He is building his own enclosed workspace within the warehouse that he can personally air-condition. He is also on a time crunch because he has a deadline to finish designing the Pineville Dinner Theatre for it’s opening in 6 weeks! So the faster we close in his space and cool him off the faster he can get to work. However we informed him that we come as a package deal and he was stoked, he really needed the help. Saturday we woke up and spent nearly 14 hours straight building what can only be described as artwork itself. Jared is one of the sweetest people I know and the whole day, though hot and trying, was a blast. Jared is in his mid-thirties and though not a Christian he certainly admires all people of faith, as he is a person of great spirituality. He is committed to community and creativity and is one of the most talkative pseudo-philosophers I have ever met, so needless to say we get along extremely well. It was a great day and we honestly felt so privileged to be able to put feet to our thoughts about community, generosity, and the Christ-like life. We worked straight till midnight and then all three of us along with Jared, Carlos and our neighbor Sarah went out for a late dinner.
Come Sunday we got up and rode our bikes to church. It is only like 20 blocks so the drive went fast and church was surprisingly full for Memorial Day weekend. Afterwards we were going to ride our bikes to meet up with a lot of the other Watershedders at a deli in town but I mistook the directions and got us all lost. Plus Jeremiah’s bike is a lot faster so he took off and I couldn’t get a hold of him. Seven miles or so later Jesse and I found it and after lunch we rode the 8 or so miles back home. It was a good ride and it mistakenly gave Jeremiah a good chance to learn the city. The rest of the day was essentially spent recovering for the week ahead and then we went to practice for a bit.
Monday we slept a little more of the last week’s business off and then got up to help Carlos with some yard work that his wife wanted done and then we went over to help Jared a little more with his studio. In the middle of it Carlos came and we all decided, along with another new artist friend of ours Matt, to go to a deli near by and talk about community. So for the next hour or so we sat around a table and began the process of dreaming of a better world. The conversation was long and meaningful and I wouldn’t really know where to start except to say that the only way to really effectively change when it comes to community is to live it out. Far too many of us have intersecting lives but no real investments in one another. The American Dream is an autonomous one with only the scope of the self and thus it can never fulfill. Worse still our churches have bought into many of these ideas instead of living our lives together and being a community of intense devotion and generosity. There are few precious moments when we embrace the communal spirit of truly putting others first and it invigorates but for most of us is has yet to birth conscious continual patterns. Anyway, it was a good talk and we continue to expand our understanding of these ideas as we strive to be faithful with what little we know. After helping Jared some more we headed to a cookout at Scott’s (one of Watershed Church’s co-pastors) house. Somehow we took on the burden of grill masters and as the crowd poured in we had some amazing conversations and continued forming new relationships there including with Scott’s 70 year old neighbor who seemed to be enjoying himself immensely and kept taking every opportunity to tell us how he was so impressed with our church and its community. Afterwards we took our new friend Neal home but first he helped us find Wal-Mart for some much needed supplies. Neal is an amazing person and has one of the most incredible testimonies I have ever heard. He has had one of the hardest lives I could imagine and he was living homeless on the streets for some time till God intervened in a big way and, like a lightning bolt, redemption had begun. Neal has been going to Watershed for several months and with Matt and Scott’s leadership has moved in with a roommate, received a scholarship, and gone back to college. It was a great night.
By Tuesday we had all found jobs. Carlos hired Jesse to be the facilities manager for the entire warehouse! He loves the job since it is only two blocks away and he works with all of the wonderful people there to create a better environment for everyone. Jesse is a really hard worker and Carlos has already told me how awesome Jesse is like 30 times, encouragement is one of his gifts. I found a job too. After all the help we gave him, Jared said we had taught him a lot about community and that we inspired him in a lot of ways but the biggest thing was the way we treated each other and him. So he offered to hire me till we leave on tour at the end of July for around 20 hours a week. Meanwhile Jeremiah loves his new job helping our friend Nells build these really rare custom countertops and like all things involving construction he is great at it. It is crazy how God has provided on this front as we all slid into perfect job situations almost immediately without any effort. The key for us is the minimal hours. We want to be able to spend as much time in the community as possible and to be able to give generously of our resources. These jobs allow us all to have the time and resources to continue in even greater patterns of generosity. Of course none of this would be possible if we weren’t embracing minimalist and communal lifestyles which are constantly teaching us about the nature of the human soul and how much our hearts treasure things over people and how little we really need to live. Also thanks so much again to those of you who have chosen to support us financially. We will try our best to tell you of all the ways these provisions are empowering us to bless the community. You have helped us build our communal base of assets and we treasure and carefully steward every penny knowing that every resource is from God’s gracious hand.
Wednesday night we had the privilege of going to dinner at our friends Matt and Michelle’s house. Matt is an amazing artist and a big bear of a guy who works as an assistant to Larry who is a coppersmith and another tenant of our beloved Area 15 Warehouse. It is important to note that all of these warehouse artists are the most interesting people I have met; Larry, Matt, T.J., Eric, Darryl, Phillip, Jorge, and even Carlos are truly larger than life. As time passes you will come to know them better if I can keep up but just imagine some of the sweetest, most talented, quirky, and deeply philosophical people you could imagine and multiply it times a hundred. Jeremiah says it’s like meeting characters you only thought existed in movies. They are each so individual and I don’t ever want to cross any lines of confidentiality but they are an interesting mix of Spiritualism, Mysticism, and even Christianity who love and respect each other intensely and are strongly committed to community and creativity. But I digress, Matt and Michelle have been married for three years and while they are both artists, Michelle works as a nanny currently and Matt works daily for the undisputed best coppersmith in all Charlotte. It was a great time getting to know them and afterwards we went and practiced for a while which turned out to be extremely productive and quite the time of worship.
Thursday was surreal. I came home from work to find that Neal had taken us up on our offer to drop by anytime. He and Jeremiah were finishing the last touches on our study/chill room (a converted bedroom) and the last of the eight bunk beds in our actual bedroom. Our good friend John Austin was also supposed to come over for dinner and I was excited to begin to see others finding our house as a place of hospitality and generosity. Somehow we all were chilling in our front yard before dinner and our neighbor Kevin came out. So far we had literally only said two sentences to Kevin so it was a welcome surprise to get to talk to him more and by the time I had finished preparing supper we talked Kevin into coming in as well. He had already had dinner so he enjoyed our specialty “ the sweet nectar of the gods” (sweet tea). As we talked we found out that Kevin is recently unemployed from the same factory where his girlfriend, with whom he lives, still works. Also, we finally found out the name of his son who has often watched us from the window, Buddha. Kevin is a really nice chill African American dude and Jeremiah said he reminds him of his summer as a missionary in Jamaica because he is so laid back. So there we sat, amazed at what God was doing, in our tiny living room sharing our dinner with three of our new friends watching worlds collide.
Later that night we went for some ice cream and Neal informed us that his new living situation is not working out well. His roommate still engages in many of the unhealthy behaviors he is trying to escape. Neal has even thought of returning to the street temporarily and using some of the facilities at his college for necessities in order to keep himself on track both spiritually and in his classes but after talking with Matt O’neil (one of Watershed’s co-pastors) he was convinced he should come talk with us about his situation. Neal asked us if there was any way we could help him out for a while and help him find another more long-term situation. We were so grateful for Matt pointing him to us, as this is exactly why we built eight bunk beds in our room. We are not able to be a halfway house or homeless shelter as we do not have the training or means but this kind of opportunity to show intense generosity is something we have prayed for. We are especially stoked because Neal is already growing so much and is such a brilliant person we are looking forward to seeing how he will challenge us and how he will continue to flower in a Christ-centered community environment. I thanked him because I knew it took a lot of humility to ask for help and for allowing us to be a blessing to him. He will most likely move in near the end of the month and we cannot believe how God is blessing. We prayed that God would grant us favor in this community by the time we left for tour at the end of July but as usual our vision is too small and God has granted us favor in this community almost immediately. At the end of the night we also had the privilege of meeting several other of our new neighbors as we sat out in the street just talking and laughing.
Friday was another day of work but Lindsey finally became a permanent resident of our community and lives here. She will be living for the next two months in a corner apartment in the warehouse with a girl named Sarah. Sarah is a part of a mission organization of athletes but since her roommate will be temporarily gone till the end of August, Lindsey will be living there. Just another small example of God throwing answers in our laps to questions we have barely begun to formulate. The four of us had dinner together and walked around Noda (the unofficial arts district of Charlotte, just up the street from us). Every first Friday of the month all of the art galleries and shops open up and it’s like a big creative arts block party.
Saturday was another huge opportunity for us to embed ourselves in this community. Watershed was having the first day of The Justice Project, which is its eight month investment of kamikaze servanthood and radical generosity in our neighborhood. Watershed, in association with several other local churches and philanthropic associations, has decided to pamper different fragile communities in an effort to bring justice and better qualities of life to these places. Optimist Park, our neighborhood, was selected as the first and this was a large part of the reason we became aware of the neighborhood even before our visits here and all of the divine appointments that happened therein. So Saturday we got up and assisted a rag tag crew of about thirty people from our church in good ole fashioned sweaty labor. We replaced a dilapidated floor for Mrs. Nina, did several necessary construction projects in Mrs. Ruby’s house as well as a few minor projects on other scattered houses throughout the neighborhood. More than anything else it was great to get to meet so many more of our new neighbors and actually get to serve them and begin the process of proving our love for them. We were excited to see how kind everyone was and get to meet many of the families behind many of the teenagers and other young people we have met in our community. God’s timing is infinitely perfect and it seems as though the whole universe were orchestrated to give us a speedy entrance into the favor of our new community.
Later in the day I (Aaron) had to drive about 30 minutes to South Charlotte to help a friend’s church who was in need of a lead guitarist. We also had another interesting opportunity as a community family to welcome in a new member and be the hands and feet of Christ. Carlos had previously told us of a new friend of his from South Charlotte. Ryan is an amazing artist and musician who helps out with another ministry in southern Charlotte. Ryan’s wife and kids were going to be away for the weekend and Ryan feared that without this accountability he might fall into many of the unhealthy behaviors which have remained a thorn in his side despite his tremendous heart for the Lord. It was an amazing chance to put community to the test and within minutes we all felt as though we were old friends. It was a night full of deep, poignant discussions and reflection. We mostly sat in our study with Ryan, read books, listened to music, and talked. It was amazing.
We awoke in the morning to find that Ryan had fallen asleep reading one of our highly recommended readings (Velvet Elvis, by Rob Bell) in the ‘comfy corner’ of our study/chill room. How blessed can we be to make friends to share our hearts and beds with instantly and have people who have just met us sleep so soundly in our house.
-Aaron