Ennie Hickman

I’m obsessed with perfection. I’ve been known to move chairs literally a half inch in order to line it up perfectly with a painting hung on the wall. With a household of five children under the age of ten, routine and discipline is a must for us. In order to get out of the door in the morning for school, every single second counts, and every action is intentional and has purpose. The homework, dinner, bath and bedtime routines are the same way. In order to succeed, all seven of us need to know our specific responsibilities and execute them perfectly. 

Read Matthew 19: 16-22. It’s my opinion that the rich young man in the Gospels approaches Jesus in the same way I would and do. He wants to make sure that he is doing absolutely everything he can to secure his own perfection and ultimately his eternal happiness. However, after a bit of an exchange, you get the sense that Jesus in His mercy is required to give him a task, “go sell all that you possess”. It’s almost as if Jesus gives this command so that the young man has something tangible to work toward. 

As I continue to struggle into deeper intimacy with God, I have found that most of the time it is not about the deeds I’m performing, but about the disposition of my heart. “Teacher, what good deed must I do, to have eternal life?” has the right intent, but it is the wrong question to ask. I’m pretty sure that Jesus answers the question, but only because the young man wasn’t ready to hear the whole truth, “get rid of everything else you love and love me alone.”

Lord, as you perfect us, teach us how to love you more than all our stuff.  Reveal to me the ultimate truth that my good deeds, my identity, my religion, my work, my family, my dreams simply pale in comparison to the inexplicable life you are calling me to. Help us to see that there is really only one deed that perfects us; submitting into a deeper into intimacy with you. 

Today, I drove over to the bank to cash a check, completely forgetting that the banks are closed on this national holiday. MLK is a hero of mine, but I honestly forget how much our country still honors him. Where hate speech and segregation still prevail in most media and social outreaches, including churches, I tend to giggle when I think about our nation honoring Dr. King.
But however far I think I’ve come, until I can emulate his example, I really have no room to talk.
I still mostly hang out with people like me. I give freely of my time and gifts mostly to those who appreciate them. It’s still very difficult to love people who misbehave, who are rude, or misinformed. Truth is, I’m easily annoyed with people who are different or have a different set of cultural perspectives. In my prayer today, as I remember Dr. King, I’m praying that I can love the abortionist as much as I love the innocent child, that I can love the fear monger as much as I love the immigrant.
Lord, have mercy on me, a bigot at times. Grant me the grace to see how recklessly you love all of your children, and the grace to love them as you love them.

Do you have a Nativity scene set up in your home? We do. It’s our family tradition to set it up in the living room on the first Sunday of Advent. Together with hot chocolate and advent songs, this has become a highly anticipated Advent event for us. There is something funny about the common Nativity scenes though. I mean I love art, but when I look at most mangers, I see what appears to be a pretty tranquil and placid event. We see the livestock and the cherubim and we sing, “sleep in heavenly peace” and “Silent Night”. But was it really silent?  Maybe it’s just me, but I’m thinking the arrival of Jesus was anything but peaceful, silent and subdued. Not only is labor loud, visitors obnoxious, animals oblivious and cold babies unhappy, this event literally rattled all of creation. The reality of the nativity was that it was the start of a major revolution, and revolutions rarely start silently.

God’s arrival in flesh, that fateful night in Bethlehem, shook the kingdoms of the earth off of their fragile foundations. His arrival on the scene was like a warning shot to the enemy of God and the Kingdoms of this world that a New Kingdom was on the move; one that stood in direct opposition of the status quo, and one that was not about “business as usual.” I think that too often we forget that Jesus birth incited this great revolution.  The moment was, in fact, a great insurrection to the established kingdoms of the earth and it’s rulers.

Next to our living room nativity, my second favorite nativity scene is on display at the Museum for Metropolitan Art in New York City, and I think it articulates this idea beautifully.  Each year the Met displays a twenty-foot blue spruce Christmas tree covered with angels, with a beautiful eighteenth century Neapolitan nativity scene underneath. The Nativity is a very familiar scene. There are the shepherds who have been awoken by a choir of angels, several sheep, the magnificent wise men from the East, Joseph, Mary, and of course the newborn Jesus. They’re all there, and each figure is a work of art by itself. They are absolutely gorgeous figurines! However, there is something unusual about this installation.  It is set, not in Bethlehem, but within the ancient ruins of Rome.  As a backdrop to the manger there are broken Roman columns and destroyed marble buildings. The artist’s intention was subtle, but powerful. This fragile, infant King would ultimately conquer all the kingdoms of this world. His presence signaled the end of the rule of all other kings, including those that rule in our own hearts.

Now, you’ve probably seen this bumper sticker as you drive, “Jesus is the reason for the season”. I say that’s incorrect… I believe YOU are!  YOU are the reason for the season. YOU are the reason God came in flesh.  Advent is not FOR God, it’s FOR us.  And similarly, Advent is NOT about us, but it IS all about God.  The Incarnation didn’t happen because the Father just thought it might be cool for His Son to come in the flesh. He came in flesh because it was absolutely necessary for Him to come that way, in order for you and I to have reconciliation with God.  Jesus, the man, lived a sinless life - a life that you and I couldn’t live.  And THIS tiny baby eventually paid the penalty of death that you and I should have paid, when He died on the Cross. The wood of the Bethlehem manger points to the wood of Calvary’s cross. A victory! A revolution! And the revolution continues this Christmas.

On December 25th, millions and millions of folks will once again put on their nicest clothes and file into Churches across the globe.  They will sing of a revolution, of a savior child.  But what will be different?  What powers that stood will be overthrown in our hearts?  I propose that Christmas can still be revolutionary.

When we invite the God of the universe into our life, He doesn’t want to come silently. The buildings of self worship that we have built inside of our hearts WILL be destroyed by the sovereign King Jesus… if you let Him. When this revolution comes, there will be shifts in our priorities, shifts in our values, shifts in our desires, shifts in our attitudes, shifts in our motivations.
 There will be shifts in the way we love our spouses, shifts on our debit cards, and shifts in the way we live our lives daily.

Friends, Jesus is a revolutionary, and the insurrection of His Nativity is a declaration that we can’t ignore.  It demands a response.  This Christmas, let’s let Jesus bring a holy revolution to our lives, and to the world we live in.

Merry Christmas from the Hickmans and Adore Ministries! May this one be different than all the rest.

reposted from my post on adoreministries.com

I love Buy Nothing Day. We have celebrated it for the last five years when we first heard about it from adbusters.org.

Why do we love it? Honestly, it’s not just this overt rejection of this massive consumer culture that we relish, though I do believe that the Black Friday doorbuster mentality is ridiculous, tacky, and dangerous. (I’ve already heard a story of a woman macing people this year to get an edge on the bargains!??? No deal is worth risking my life for, unless it’s an actual need, like food, water or shelter.)

Moreover, the values of more, more, more stuff just doesn’t resonate with us anymore, and it’s really not our idea of a perfect holiday. Even when our family used to go to great lengths to buy the perfect gifts for each other, it was the time spent with our family that really gave us life. Not the stuff.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the gifting part of Christmas —both giving and receiving. But with so many ways to share love with family and friends, from homemade foods, handmade gifts, photos, knitted or sewn items, or just a gathering, I feel little need to camp out in a line or navigate shopping cart jams at huge box stores. No thanks.

For the Hickmans, Advent and Christmas have always been an all out, end of the year, ridiculous display of our ultimate values of our faith in God and loyalty to our family. Whether we are unwrapping the coolest gifts of the season or awkwardly handing over a handmade coaster, our celebrations are about peace and sincere love. Our celebration of Buy Nothing Day is nothing more than the first bookend to the way we celebrate Christmas.

By putting family, relaxation, and peace first, and foregoing the chaos of a consumer culture that defines our value by how much we will spend, we are witnessing to our children and to the world, the person of Christ, that came in to the world to rescue it from the slavery to self.

Happy Buy Nothing Day. Keep the lights low, eat some leftover turkey, play a family game, and be at peace. If you are out there shopping, be a hospitable shopper, smile and let others go first. All in all, let’s remember that we are the lights that are shining in the darkened world. Go shine!

Thank God for our community here in Houston. The last couple of weeks have been one of intense growth and growing pains. As our ministry grows beyond our little family and our little outreaches, my roles have begun to morph a bit. With the morphing comes a new understanding of God’s call in our life.

Starting out, all we wanted to do was serve Houston as missionaries. The second year we began to realize that mission is God’s and not our own. That He will do His mission with or without us. With the third year came the realization that we are not only called to where the most need was, but also called to represent the greater Body of Christ the Church. If the mission didn’t make sense to the common person, we not only were going to lack resources, but we were going to have a hard time finding advocates. In taking on new missions and new missionaries, in finding better articulations of the mission for our supporters, and in growth in the organization overall, Ennie Hickman, missionary to Houston, inevitably has become Ennie Hickman, very tired missionary to Houston. 

Needless to say, it is our mission that has created the community here, and it is the community that has kept the mission alive. Without our weekly gatherings, brother to brother chats, and honest feedback from trusted elders, we would not have made it through any of these transitions. Praise the Lord, the Incarnate Word. 

God desires to satisfy us with what is satisfactory. Don’t waste your time today with the artificial stuff. Seek the bread of God.

Here is how Pope B16 put it today. “I invite the leaders of nations and men of good will to always refuse violence as the solution to problems, to resist the temptation toward hatred and to work in society, inspired by the principles of solidarity, justice and peace.”
I love this guy.