a Missional Theology: part 1

I recently posted a podcast at our new site - www.MissionalMonks.com - titled "a missional theology," which addresses my understanding of who we are called to be as God's people. I decided to post the transcript of that podcast here. Its a little long, so it'll show up as a series of three posts.

Note that its entitled "a" missional theology...not "the" missional theology. What I attempted to describe are some basic understandings of functioning as God's community of ambassadors to all creation. There is plenty of room here for the different denominational distinctions and doctrines - I didn't even try to get in to all the finer points of systematic theology here. So, if you think that something I added is wrong, please feel free to open dialog. If you think I left something out...I did. Add it and serve faithfully.

If you aren't interested in reading 3500 words over three posts, you can listen to nearly the identical thing at missionalmonks.com - the "music" player is in the left hand column - its just under 30 mins including the intro (shorter than most of my sermons...). Whether you read or listen, I'd love your feedback.

Toward a Missional Theology

Over the last couple years I’ve been working on a degree in evangelism and missional leadership from SMU. It has been an awesome experience and I’ve really enjoyed the diversity of folks I’ve been blessed to study with. I’m usually the youngest in the class, usually one of the only (if not THE only) white males and so far I’ve been the only one who would be described as a “missional church planter.”

So I’ve had anything but the experience of sitting in a room with people just like me, telling each other what we want to hear to feel better about who we are and what we do.

I’ve learned a lot by listening to the struggles and questions of folks in contexts that appear so very different from my own. When they ask me to describe my context, it isn’t usually very easy to do. Partially this is because “my context” changes pretty regularly. At one point I would have basically described us as a typical non-denominational suburban store front church that was trying very hard to keep our focus outside of ourselves, but not succeeding very well. At some points I’d have described us as a small group of shell shocked survivors huddling in a living room. Sometimes we’re a vibrant community of families serving our neighbors. Sometimes, we’re a haphazard collection of individuals wanting to experience an authentic connection with others, but unsure how to escape the individualism we’ve all been raised in.

At our best, I think we are a community of disciples in process who sense that church as usual just isn’t cutting it. But rather than defining ourselves over against traditional church, we’re seeking to emulate Jesus by living more fully into our lives. We’re committed to living the gospel in the midst of the suburban disconnect. Proclaiming gospel isn’t about getting someone to join our club. Its about getting our club to join God in the ministry of reconciling the brokenness we see all around us.

In some ways our context is hard to describe because we are exploring territory that hasn’t had many visitors recently. Yet, we aren’t really trying to be novel. We’re trying to faithful to God and the mission that God has entrusted to us, the ambassadors and image-bearers of the Triune God.

So, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking, reading, praying and discussing what it means to be church. I’ve gained a lot of understanding from reading Exodus, the prophets and the Gospels - even though I was trained (implicitly if not explicitly in church growing up and in seminary as well) to look to Paul as the primary source of insight for church organization.

Authors such as Alan Hirsch and Mike Frost, who wrote The Forgotten Ways...and numerous other books - Hugh Halter and Matt Smay have also been very helpful. Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and the new monastics have helped me think more specifically about the role of community in our development of whole life faith.

Really where these authors have been the most help is in painting a picture and providing language to describe what we see in the text when we stop reading through the lens of the empire.

In many ways and for many years, I believe that our reading of scripture has been heavily influenced by Christianity’s way to comfortable relationship and even identification with the dominant culture. I think this is problematic. It is very hard to take to heart Scriptures admonition against the powerful and God’s overwhelming consistency of siding with the oppressed when we’re associated with the powerful oppressors.

Take the Scriptural concept of “The Day of the Lord.” For those who have been oppressed, the day of the Lord is an event to be looked forward to with great anticipation because it is the day of deliverance and justice. For those who have been guilty of oppressing others, it is a day to fear greatly for the same reason. But we don’t ever like to assume that we are the ones being prophesied against...we never associate ourselves with the Pharisees. And so the Day of the Lord becomes about judgement to those outside of our group. We can oppress, neglect or ignore people all we want, so long as we show up for church, don’t cheat on our spouse and sign off on the doctrinal statements that our group feels are most important. God sides with the weak, the overlooked and forgotten. If we want to find ourselves on God’s side, sitting in a comfortable worship assembly completely oblivious to the darkness all around us may not be the best strategy.

As I’ve thought about what it means to be God’s people - the church - I find myself returning to passages like Genesis 1-2 quite often. Those of you who know me are probably used to hearing me comment on the paradoxical descriptions of God in these two chapters.

In chapter 1 of Genesis we read of a God who is anything but like one of us. In fact there are very few things in this chapter that seem to describe God in even remotely human concepts. The Spirit of God hovers over the waters, which gives us the impression that God IS somewhere and isn’t just a concept. God speaks, implying a voice and the ability to make sounds...which we can do. Beyond that, this Being, whatever he, she, they, it is...it isn’t one of us.

And yet, in Chapter 2 God is described in a very different way. Still great. Still mighty. Still in charge. But also familiar. Intimate. Like a father - the good kind of father, not the abusive absentee ones that some people have experienced.

This God walks in the Garden, kneels in the dirt, forms a body and breathes life into its nostrils. This God walks with his children, talks to them and empowers them with productive tasks to accomplish.

This may be the most simplistic and obvious statement I could make, but it strikes me that in some ways we are like this God...but we are not this God. I think, however, that it is very important for us to remember to keep both of these truths in front of us. If we forget that we are not God all kinds of things go wrong - Scripture, human history and personal experience will all attest to that!

to be continued...

The Banquet

There was once a group of friends who lived an exciting life. Everyday was filled with adventure and risk. Each morning as they awoke the possibilities of the new day would flood their minds and they could hardly get through their morning routines fast enough before heading off to see what they would see.

This group of friends had been brought together by the most extraordinary leader. A principled yet compassionate visionary, he never seemed to need sleep and yet always found time to rest and relax with the friends. He never grew hungry, and shared all he had, yet seemed to enjoy meals more than anyone.

He was confident and competent and yet quick to empower others. No one ever had any doubt that this leader would be fine without them but neither did they fear he would ever choose to leave them.

Each day, their adventures revolved around the magnificent tasks that the leader was busy completing. It seemed that no matter how early they got started, they always found him there - wherever “there” happened to be - before they arrived.

Sometimes the tasks seemed menial, mundane and extremely normal. Sometimes the friends found themselves in the midst of monumental revolutions. Always, no matter how small or grand the task, they walked away knowing that the world was now a little better place.

Most agreed however, that the most amazing thing was the food. People everywhere were hungry. Food was scarce and often only obtained through incredible effort.

You would think that all this time spent working on the leader's tasks would leave the friends little time to grow, buy or scavenge for sustenance. But no, somehow this leader threw extravagant feasts and provided the friends with more food than they could eat. The food was not only delicious, but it nourished their bodies better than any other food they had access to. They were strong and healthy, full of energy and passion.

Over time they began to realize that something should be done with all this food, it wasn’t right to keep it to themselves. And so they decided to host a banquet in the leader’s honor each week...seriously, there was a lot of food.

They would come together and share a meal from what they’d gathered during the previous week. They would invite other friends, neighbors, the poor people they passed on the street, anyone they happened to encounter - why should anyone go hungry when so much was available?

And they would raise their glasses in a toast to their benefactor and would share their stories of adventure. They began to realize that the more they gave away - both food and stories - the more they seemed to possess. Others began to inquire if they too could join this group of friends in their journey.

This pleased the leader tremendously. In fact, it had been the plan all along. He had seen the way other leaders, kings, presidents and dictators had used power and coercion to establish nations. He had noticed that a philosophy of scarcity seemed to keep people in their place. But this baffled him and so he set about quietly transforming the lives of a few people...knowing full well that when others heard about a life of plenty; an abundant life rich with meaning, a new society would be inevitable.

Over time this small group of friends did in fact grow to become a large society, but a sad thing began to happen.

Some people began to realize that they could stay in their beds, remain in their houses and skip the adventures entirely. When the end of week came around they could just listen to stories of other people’s adventures and share in the abundance of food that was provided. In fact, if they were careful and rationed wisely, they could gather enough food during the banquet to last them all week!

And so they would raise their glasses and toast the wise leader. Their eyes would tear up as they heard stories that warmed their hearts. They would shake their heads in bewilderment that there were still those who had not cast their lot with this group of friends. And then they would go home with pockets full of food.

Years went by and the number of people who found this loophole not only grew, but it came to be expected that only a chosen few would join in the leader's adventures. A few more were selected to run the banquets. Afterall, the number of people participating had grown so much that it was only right to bring some order to the relational chaos that had developed. Elaborate banquet halls were constructed. Rules were established for proper dispersal and handling of food, with fewer and fewer people having access to the store rooms.

Most people found themselves quite content with just attending the banquets anyway. They didn’t have the same adventures as others, but then again, perhaps not everyone was cut out for such a life of risk. Besides, they rationalized, this way they could spend their time doing other worthwhile tasks around their house.

For the most part, the lives of the friends once again became dull and mundane. Mornings grew to be dreaded because they knew that today would be just like yesterday - boring and filled with a growing hunger.

Eventually, there were enclaves all over that were filled with friends whose bodies were no longer strong and healthy. In fact, without the sustenance they gathered at the weekly banquet, they could barely survive. They no longer understood the banquet's primary purpose to be sharing an abundance of food, but rather the place where they procured enough for their continued existence. It was actually rare to find a banquet where the participants had even seen the leader during the previous week, let alone joined him in any adventures.

To make matters worse, as the number of people working with the leader decreased, so did the amount of food that was available. It wasn’t that the visionary leader had less to distribute, it was just that no one had gone to collect it. Most of the friends seemed completely unaware that everyday the leader was still out working on his amazing tasks...

And so, many people began to stop attending the feasts all together. They were angry with the leader for his apparent unfulfilled promises. Some began moving from banquet hall to banquet hall in search of one that would feed them sufficiently. Some gave up completely and went out in search of other food. It may not be as wonderful as the meals they’d heard about in the stories...but they hadn’t experienced those very often anyway.

Where the banquets were lacking in food, they were rich in ritual. Food became a metaphor today with the promise of real food in the future, once the leader finally and completely replaced the old societies with his new society; the toasts became perfunctory requirements; stories were memorized, analyzed, stylized, digitized and programitized... A competition began to arise between different groups of friends as to who could host the most beautiful banquet with or without food.

Other friends rejected the value of a "beautiful" banquet and focused instead on putting together properly orchestrated banquets. Without anything of immediate value to share with others, it became rare for anyone to invite a neighbor to the feast...afterall, there wasn’t much feasting taking place anyway. While a few people saw it as their calling to proclaim a feast in the future for those who would have the faith to wait for it today, most people didn’t feel they had the persuasive ability to convince friends to come and sit in anticipation of something they couldn’t prove.

And everyone sent fervent messages to the leader to send more food.

And a question began to form in the minds of people everywhere: Is there still any adventure or abundance in the world?

They say that if you listen carefully you can hear the leader whisper in response, “Come and see.”

Some say its just a story, as if any truly great story could ever be “just” a story...

Wells Family Church Planting Update - November 2010

that little guy is new cousin Griffin...

thanks to Joey being sick, I don't have a picture of the wellsbrothers with NEWEST cousin Kallie yet

We want to thank you for sharing this journey with us over the last few years - it has never been easy and doesn’t seem to be moving in that direction any time soon, but your friendship, encouragement and prayers have played an enormous role in keeping us moving forward.

Since my last update in August we’ve been getting into the groove of the new school year. Conner is doing great in 1st grade. He continues to amaze us with his brilliant little mind and unbelievably sweet heart. Recently we had a conference with his teacher who shared that he is not only one of the brightest kids she’s ever taught, he also displays a rare and much appreciated combination of leadership and compassion. She told us that Conner often reads books to the class when she needs to step out for a moment, he is one of the first to help other students. What brought me the most pride was when she noted that while he is quick to share what he knows with others, he never appears condescending or prideful...just sincerely happy to help someone else. Awesome.

Joey and Micah are both doing well in preschool and I think that Rachel has really enjoyed teaching there - if for no other reason than she gets glimpses into their day. However, as you can imagine, Rachel has been a tremendous blessing to the kids in her class and their parents...even if she won’t admit it! The schedule has been a pretty big adjustment - especially with me still making occasional trips to OKC - but I think its definitely been worth the added hassle.

Speaking of OKC...that beast just refuses to be slain! I’ve pretty much finished everything, but little frustrations have kept me going back up for a couple days most weeks. This little experiment didn’t turn out as we’d hoped, but there were some good things that came out of it. In the midst of our conversations with different churches regarding their roofs, we met a minister at a Lutheran church who turned out to be quite interested in the concept of missional church planting.

Teresa has become a good friend. I had the opportunity to spend one Saturday with a group of folks from her church talking about living a missional life: what that means and what it might look like even in a very structured church context.

As you might have heard, I’ve been preparing to start my major doctoral project (the DMin version of a dissertation) which officially begins in February, following my FINAL class! The project (called “Communitas” - a word referring to community that is developed through a shared struggle, ordeal or mission) is developing a process for missional leadership training and spiritual formation. I’ve decided to focus not so much on seminary students or people preparing to plant churches (though this process would still be appropriate for them) but rather on groups of “normal” church folks. Our pilot program is doubling as a leadership development process within Christ Journey.

I’m already in conversation with several groups about participating in Communitas once I’ve completed the “beta” phase and made revisions. My hope and prayer is that this, in conjunction with teaching in the Academy for Missional Wisdom at SMU, will provide an opportunity to equip others to engage in whole life faith and missional leadership in the midst of their community...without having to leave the own congregation to do so. Along with that, we are praying that this will provide long term financial sustainability for our ministry in this area, without me having to work so many hours in other job settings.

We’re currently launching a web platform at www.missionalmonks.com that will serve as the “classroom” for instruction - which will depend heavily on processing together through dialog and then immediately implementing what we’re learning into our neighborhoods or other local contexts. Hopefully, the website will also serve as a place for ongoing dialog about whole-life faith and discipleship, some guest articles and devotionals and also as a central location to host the “Missional Monks Podcast” that Chris and I have been doing since this summer (you can also find the podcasts by searching missional monks on iTunes.)

These podcasts consist primarily of interviews with thinkers, church planters and authors from all over North America - folks who are engaged in some amazing ministries. The conversations have been very helpful for us - and the comments we’ve received from all over the country suggest that they’ve been so for others as well.

As you can see, we have been very busy lately! There are several new families who have become integral parts of the Christ Journey community and we continue to find opportunities to serve and connect with new friends in the Burleson area.

As I prepare for 2011, I’m realizing that it is going to be very difficult to dedicate the necessary time and energy to Communitas and Christ Journey while also working 50 hours a week in roofing. I am arranging some conversations with churches and groups of ministers and leaders to discuss supporting us for one year as we get Communitas off the ground - and also consider having a group of folks go through the Communitas program when it is ready to go in 2012. We have a pretty great plan for how to effectively take an entire congregation - even a large one - through this process without folks simply becoming anonymous spectators.

If you have been supporting us financially, Rachel and I want to once again thank you. It has meant so much to us that God has used a group of friends - many who are in tight financial situations themselves - to keep the door open for us to share the life of Christ with those who previously only thought of church in negative terms. There are people today who have come to or come back to faith in God because you chose to partner in the gospel with us.

If you think your church or another group might be willing to help us financially as we launch Communitas and continue planting the gospel in this area, please pass this along or help me get in contact with them. Likewise, if you know of a group that may be interested in hearing more about how Communitas can help them more fully live into the gospel in their neighborhoods and community, I’d love to talk with them.

Again, you can check out and join the (active, but still under construction) web platform for Missional Monks and the Communitas Experience at www.missionalmonks.com.

Grace and Peace,

Bret, Rachel and the Wellsbrothers.

Having Coffee With God

I've had the opportunity to do some work at Denny's this week - something I haven't done much of since starting the roofing job. I've been reminded of the numerous friendships developed and great interactions that took place in that booth by electrical outlet. This is a paper I wrote for my first class at SMU a couple summers ago...

It wasn’t God that let me down.

I’ve had to say those words to myself at various times over the past few years, which was a gradual and disturbing development. Faith has always been such a large part of my life; such an important part of my childhood home. I never blamed God for the difficult times we experienced when I was a child. It never even occurred to me.

In college I went through a difficult period with my mom; I was confused and hurt, but I didn’t blame God. Then my dad got cancer and struggled more, but blaming God still didn’t seem like the appropriate response.

When Rachel and I had a miscarriage, I was devastated. But outside of a few emotional moments, I didn’t really blame God.

When I lost my job and church and friends one Tuesday I began to wonder if perhaps God had something to do with it after all.

After nine solid months of looking for a new ministry position; after being the runner-up in five different search processes; after using my master’s degree to alphabetize books at Barnes & Noble; after what little bit of my ego that remained was destroyed, the seeds of doubt moved in and started rearranging furniture. God was certainly beginning to appear culpable...

Then we took the leap of faith and moved to New Orleans only to have trouble after trouble and heartache on top of heartache, and I started to wonder if the whole “God” thing was a cosmic joke. I was starting to fear that, like a grown up version of Santa Claus, at any moment someone was going to sit me down and say, “Look, don’t be upset, but...” In the times when I wasn’t doubting God’s existence, it is safe to say that I was beginning to blame God.

Then one day I had coffee with God...

I’ve never said it that way before, but over the past few weeks I’ve begun to realize that was precisely what happened. A woman who had been hurt by church people started a conversation with me at IHOP one evening. We talked for over an hour before she asked anything about me. Kay was very surprised when I told her I was a preacher. I’m not sure how she expected me to respond, but she told me that she doesn’t trust Christians and she was perhaps even more surprised when I replied, “I know what you mean.”

I had not put it together before right now, but that was the moment that my healing truly began; perhaps God sent Kay Moody to minister to me. In my mind I’ve always thought that God sent me to IHOP to minister to Kay and later to her whole family, which did happen, but I think in some ways, she was the missionary and I was the one who needed to experience the reconciling ministry of community available in God. This lady, who hadn’t been to church in decades, served priestly, pastoral and prophetic roles in my life.

That process of healing continued over the next couple years right up to a recent event at Denny’s when once again, God showed up to have coffee in an unexpected form.

Sitting in Denny’s has certain similarities to what I imagine it would have been like to sit in the middle of the Athenian Areopagus. In Acts 17 we read of Paul walking around this area where people “spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas” (Acts 17:21). A few people come to Denny’s to eat, most are there to talk.

Perhaps when I walk in to Denny’s I’m showing up for an appointment to have coffee with God in the place where people like to share ideas. The struggle is that I never have any idea what God is going to look like this time.

On this particular day, God could have easily been found working in any number of people. It was busy when I arrived and as I looked around the room I can specifically remember thinking, “I may not get much work done today.” Anita greeted me from the smoking section, I smiled, said hello and walked past her to my booth.

On this particular day there were several young African Americans laughing and talking about any number of things; there were three hispanic construction workers conversing in Spanish, I picked up a few words here and there; cerveza (beer) was a popular topic. Mike, an older man who always wants to talk about my MacBook was on the other side of the room. Keith was his server but Mike kept yelling at Anita, who was still in the smoking section. Keith was getting ready for his trip to Las Vegas, which has been a major topic of conversation in the past.

However, on this day, God met me for coffee in the form of a young woman with shoulder length hair and the weight of the world on her shoulders. Our conversation started with something safe for both of us: I asked about her children and showed her pictures of my own.

As I continued asking questions and she continued revealing more of her story, each time letting her guard down a little more, I began to grow anxious. Her story was so similar to Kay’s. And both of their stories are so similar to my mother’s.

I did not fully recognize it at the time, but my primary task at that moment was maintain control of my identity. Like the moment when your car begins to hydroplane, my internal response at that moment would decide whether this event would become an adrenaline rush or a devastating crash.

The temptation was to cease operating as a distinct person and begin to take on Brandy’s concerns, fears, doubts and anger. She made the statement, “I trusted in God and things were crap, so I decided to do things on my own and now things are fine.” I understood that feeling, or at least, there’d be times when I asked myself if this would be the case. But these trials were not mine, they were Brandy’s and taking them away from her would only do harm to both of us.

As we continued to talk, her defenses continued to come down and I can now see that with the revelation of each new layer, God - standing there by my booth, looking exactly like a girl named Brandy - was giving me a chance to experience a moment of sacred connection with the God who had at one point had seemed to nearly vanish from existence.

I can neither remove, make up for nor dismiss Brandy’s past experiences, and I believe that it was my not trying to do so that encouraged her to trust me. It also wouldn’t have served much purpose to get into a church bashing session with Brandy. I simply acknowledged the painful reality, adding a brief comment or two about my own history of disappointments.

I can see that, though I was struggling to not become anxious about “helping” Brandy, I was not anxious about whether or not God was to blame for her situation. Or mine. She isn’t ready to hear it yet, but it wasn’t God that let Brandy down. The opportunity to see that in Brandy, just as I saw it in Kay, becomes a mirror where I begin to see it in my own story. But it isn’t a great mirror. Its more like the mirror that Paul refers to in 1 Corinthians 13:12 “Now all we can see of God is like a cloudy picture in a mirror” (Contemporary English Version).

I don’t get the full picture at once, I get bits and pieces here and there, so will Brandy and so does everybody else.

Or maybe it isn’t like a cloudy mirror, maybe its like a series of small windows. I look out one and I can only see green leaves. Another reveals a break in the leaves and behind them is blue sky. Yet another frames no leaves at all, but rather a fence and on the other side a large pasture and rolling hills. No one picture is the complete picture, but they are all important clues to where I am.

In many ways I believe that the setting of our conversations are at least as important as the content. Brandy asked, “Why don’t you have an office?” There are several answers to that question, but one of them is that I spent several years in ministry behind the doors of an office with little or no interaction with other people, except when I worked at a church with multiple staff. I remember complaining that no job could possibly be less conducive to evangelism than ministry - I spent my time either isolated in our castle or swamped with the concerns of Christians. By moving my office to public space I began to encounter people.

I’m not in a situation where I need to go to Denny’s to find those encounter’s anymore. There are plenty of opportunities to connect with non-Christians in my context - at Shenendoah, even on Sunday mornings. But there is something different about the coffee shop. Perhaps each time I enter Denny’s I’m hoping that this will be a day that I look up over the rim of my coffee cup and find God sitting at the booth again.

The Athenians, in a place where people came to discuss stuff, confronted Paul with the statement, “You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean” (vs 20). When Paul responded, he spoke to them of the “unknown God” honored by one of their altars and he quoted their own philosophers in doing so. Like the Areopagus, Denny’s is a place where people share ideas with each other. It is a place to discuss “strange things” in community. And I’m not the minister there.

Sure, I’m a minister everywhere I go, and because I loathe inauthenticity I’m careful to make sure people know that part of my story. But nobody hired me to be the minister of the Denny’s Church (even though that’s what a few people have come to call it). I can have coffee with God and not feel obligated to always be the one representing God in the conversation.

This isn’t the same as being in an anonymous setting where no one knows I’m a minister. These people know, and they expect me to respond as more than just a person who believes in God, but one who takes it very seriously. But, at least at a certain level, Brandy doesn’t care if I’m a minister, because she doesn’t even consider herself a Christian. So she doesn’t have any problem telling me that she thinks the Mayan prediction of doom in 2012 is probably accurate. I can offer my opinion on the matter without having to wonder if she’s going to just adopt my perspective because I’m her pastor.

I had a conversation with an angry teenager in my youth group once (...more than once) who challenged my motives in showing concern for his destructive behavior: “You only care because you’re paid to.” That wasn’t true, and later I realized that he knew it, but it was still painful.

When I’m at Denny’s I don’t worry about people questioning my motives. Early on this was a slight concern because people could view my presence as a gimmick or a possible bait-and-switch trap. But over time through the ministry of presence and relationship, people at Denny’s have come to trust me and have accepted me as part of the herd. When issues are being discussed my opinion is sought - not because I’m the authority but because I’m part of the community and will likely have an interesting perspective.

The authority I have in this setting is solely relational authority, it has been granted to me because the community has recognized my voice as worth listening to. I often describe my ministry in this setting as acknowledging people’s humanity - making eye contact, greeting people by name, not treating them as just another transactional relationship. However, given these realizations, perhaps it is they who are affirming my humanity.

I owe Brandy a debt of gratitude. Her willingness to engage me in conversation was an act of compassion and ministry. A large part of the mission of the Church, as I understand it, is to reflect the image of God by functioning as a story of the Community of Love in action. And perhaps that is another aspect that attracts me to this event. Both Brandy and I ended up modeling the image of God to the other.

I do believe that this is in fact where I come to have coffee with God and sometimes God looks like a girl named Brandy.

*PS - this was written in the summer of 2009. Since then Brandy has become a valued and valuable part of the Christ Journey community. She recently moved to Fort Worth and started going to school...while still working to support herself and her daughter. She doesn't have many opportunities to gather with us on weekends and whatnot right now - but we're still family and we appreciate any opportunities we get to share life.