I look through my March calendar and see a very busy month. “Busy” is a mixed bag of a term, useful for good or evil. What defines the value of busy-ness is its focus. So I look again at my month and search for its center.

In chapter three of Night Shift, I write of the roles to which God calls us. To fulfill His mission, we become altar builders, dreamers, advocates, worship leaders, and priest trainers.

I love to write – more books coming out, a monthly ezine, several blogs, an ebook version of Night Shift. And so much of this writing is advocacy work, worship leading and all about training priests, every bit of it in the name of extending blessing “wherever the curse is found.”

To sustain this writing habit of mine, I have a day job. Happens to be work with much the same passion, serving as I do as program manager for the Northeast Emergency Food Program (NEFP). Last year our staff, volunteers, support and supply network provided help to 1 in every 50 Portlanders – nearly 11,000 people who all together received over half a million pounds of food, plus thousands of articles of used clothing. It takes a lot of coordinating and fundraising to make all that happen – a lot of altar building, dreaming, advocating, leading and training. Between now and Easter we will have 3 major fundraising events (advocacy) to help us sustain our work through the coming months.

On March 14, I’m visiting my state senator and assemblyman as part of the Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon’s Interfaith Advocacy Day. NEFP is a direct service of EMO. In the face of necessary state budget cuts, we want to make sure the most vulnerable among us are not pushed to the side of the discussion.

That political advocacy also includes my role on the board of the Oregon Center for Christian Voices and as blogger on “Oregon Christian Voices.” Advocacy: speaking on behalf of those who have no voice – the poor, the homeless, the enslaved and trafficked, the sick, and the lost. To track what I’m tracking, go to the calendar page on my website.

Then there is the Life Group I co-lead with my wife, where a growing core of friends gather in our home each Thursday to study how we all can be agents of blessing. As part of the worship team I fiddle with on the third Sunday evening of each month, I play the role of worship leader at our church, Mosaic.

By far not least of my work is the co-role I share with my wife of providing and caring for our family. Our oldest, Robert, deploys to Afghanistan the end of this month. Stephen leads the International Justice Mission group at his college while pursuing a teaching degree in math. Child number three, a delightful daughter named Hope, turns 18 this month as she works hard to find scholarships for a college nursing degree. One by one they leave the nest, leaving Hannah who will remain home for two more years as she finishes high school. Hopefully, I’ve been a good priest trainer.

Times are tight all around. I see it in hundreds of faces every week at our food center. I see it among the faces of our 150 volunteers, people who come to serve others even as they themselves have needs. And that is the beauty of serving together in faith – we do it in community. Which is what a lot of our clients and volunteers are looking for when they walk through our door.

Like you no doubt, we’re stretching every penny, looking for more resources, asking God for each day’s bread. But as we do so, we realize we are far from alone. Not only in being aware that so many others are struggling, too, but also in being aware that such burdens are to be shared, something easily forgotten in our cutthroat world.

So, to get back to the original question, is there focus in this busy-ness, a focus beyond mere survival? Absolutely! It is the passion to live out what I believe about God – that He who is love incarnate has called us to love Him and our neighbor in return.