Church Family Update - July 10

Good Friday Afternoon Everyone! I don’t have any family news to pass along to you except to remind you that if you have any good news or prayer requests, please pass them along to me so that we can all be aware of what’s happening in our faith family.

Also, please remember to follow the link  Google Registration and register by 2:00 PM today if you are planning on attending our Sunday service. Our youth team will be leading worship and as I mentioned in a previous update, it’s not nearly as awkward as it sounds to stand and silently worship God in our hearts while the worship team sings. I look forward to seeing some of you there!

A Devotional Thought (continued from July 8):

“And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts.” Acts 2:46

José had about a year left on his sentence before he was eligible for parole. So I began visiting him about twice a month and we wrote letters to each other in between my visits. We started doing Bible studies together but we would also just sit and talk. José and I had very different childhoods and we enjoyed listening to each other and learning from each other.

José had grown up in the inner city poor Hispanic neighborhood that my family was currently living in. But José’s family was poor even for that neighborhood. At a very young age, José began to feel ashamed of his family’s poverty and started to scheme ways that he could provide for himself and his sister’s basic needs.

One day an older kid from the neighborhood, a member of the local Latin Kings gang, noticed that José’s shoes were full of holes. He handed José a handful of cash and told him to go buy some shoes for himself. You can imagine what a dream-come-true it would be for a young boy who never had nice things to be given more money than he had ever seen in his life and told to go buy some nice shoes. 

José took the money and bought shoes for himself and his sister and from that point on José idolized those gang members. His mom was not pleased when she saw the new shoes but what could she do? She spent all of her waking time working at a low-paying job to pay rent and buy food. She just didn’t have the energy or the influence in her son’s life to direct him away from the gangs. 

The Latin Kings are extremely well organized. Their midwest headquarters is in Chicago but they have a strong presence on the Southside of Milwaukee. They have literally divided up every single block in that Southside neighbourhood where José lived. Each section of the neighbourhood is assigned to a lieutenant who is in charge of a group of gang members who sell drugs in that particular district. They then pay a percentage of their profits to the local chapter and another percentage to the central office in Chicago and what’s left over (which isn’t much) they can keep for themselves.

As you can imagine, it takes real leadership skills to be the lieutenant of a district. At a young age, José was identified as a strong, charismatic leader. An older gang member began to groom José for leadership. He loved the attention. He loved the money. He loved the respect. But more than any of those things, in the Latin Kings he found the security of “family.” Once you become a Latin King, you’re in for life and you know that there’s a group of guys that have your back, no matter what. José would later find out that this isn’t actually true, but that’s what he believed at the time. 

What I realized through my friendship with José is that the Latin Kings gang is full of young men (almost none of them live to be old) who are longing for the basic human desire to be loved unconditionally. To have a place where they fit in and are accepted for who they are. To have a group of people who will be on their side no matter what. A place where they have something to offer and can use their gifts and talents to serve the group. Everyone wants that. A lot of young Hispanic men think they’ve found it in the Latin Kings. José thought he had found that and it would be years before he realized his mistake.

All gangs have initiation rituals. The Latin Kings are known for having especially brutal entry ceremonies. They sometimes refer to one of the rituals as “blood in blood out.” What that means is that on the night when you officially become a member the other members surround you and beat you mercilessly until you’re bloody all over. Welcome to the family! Your membership in the family is for life. If ever you want to get out of the gang family, well that’s a problem because you probably know things that could get a lot of people in trouble. People are sometimes allowed to leave but in that case, the exit ritual requires an even more severe beating and threats about what will happen if you ever tell on any of your former gang members. 

José went through all that. Why would anyone ever subject themselves to that kind of sadistic treatment? Because in the depths of their heart they’re looking for a family and they don’t know where to find it and they’ll literally do anything to experience it. 

I come from a sheltered suburban middle-class family. More than once I was shocked and outraged as I listened to José’s story. I didn’t have any way of fact-checking what José told me but I also didn’t have any reason to think he wasn’t being dishonest. Each week after our conversation we’d pray together and then hug and say goodbye. I’d go through the security checks and walk through the prison yard and then go through more security checks and then get my belt and valuables back (I don’t know why they always took my belt). And then I’d drive back to Milwaukee and think about what I just heard. 

As I thought about José’s deep desire for family and the brutal “blood-in” ritual to get into that family I suddenly realized what an amazing blessing it is to have a church family…a “faith family,” where we get to experience the deep fellowship and belonging that those gang members are looking for. And I thought to myself how blessed it is that everyone is simply, freely invited to join this family without being required to shed their own blood to get in. And then it hit me…

There is a “blood-in” ritual to get into our faith family. And the blood that was shed was precious. But it wasn’t ours. 

Well, I can see this story is going to require another installment. So I’ll stop there for now and, Lord willing, resume next week. 

Ebenezer is an amazing church family and it’s a blessing to be part of it. I hope and pray that through our discussion about José and gangs and family and church that we will all come to appreciate and love our faith family all the more. 

Have a blessed and joyful weekend.

See you on the Lord’s Day (either at the church building or in your living room).

Pastor Jason