InnerCHANGE: Part Two: In Which Peter has an Internship, and it is All Tim Lockie’s Fault.

So, fearless reader, to recap, we had left our adventurers Peter and Liz stuck in a movie about their own backstory (catch up with Part I here).

The ensuing hiatus might be titled “In Which Liz has been Trying to Write the Second Part of this Movie for Two Weeks, and it Simply Refuses to be Written.”

And thus InnerCHANGE: The Movie! Part Two: has turned into

“In Which Liz Conducts a (Slightly Dramatized and Reconstructed) Interview with Peter about the InnerCHANGE Internship he did in Denver, and it is All Tim Lockie’s Fault.”

Think of it as a flash-forward in the movie. Pretend we’re sitting at a coffee shop and you’re eavesdropping. Or something….

Liz: So, Denver was the summer after junior year in college, right?

Peter: Right. You were selling books in Boston.

Liz: And you were living in a van down by the river.

Peter: Um, no….but we were living in an old motel on the side of the highway called Joshua Station. Mile High Ministries bought it (InnerCHANGE was partnering with them for the summer) and converted the whole motel into transitional housing for homeless families looking to get back on their feet.

Liz: Okay. So the summer before, you had done a program with Latin America Mission in Honduras, but that next summer you chose InnerCHANGE. Thoughts? What attracted you to InnerCHANGE?

Peter: Well, by that point, I’d been talking to InnerCHANGE people for almost two years. I knew after my time in Honduras that I was more interested in urban missions in the States, not the more “traditional” style of missions I had done overseas. So there was the combination of those two factors. And I had talked and learned enough from InnerCHANGE about their relational style of ministry among the urban poor, and I really liked what they did and wanted to experience it and put it into practice. So it was a natural next step.

Liz: And why’d you pick Denver?

Peter: Because Tim Lockie invited me, basically. I’d talked with him a few times about it; then he told me about a new team that would be doing a scouting mission in Denver—an exploratory group looking to see if InnerCHANGE might plant a future long-term team there. And that sounded cool; it was something new, a way to help the mission of InnerCHANGE move forward and break some new ground.

Liz: Kinda like we’ll be doing in London as we help grow the ministry there.

Peter: Yeah. So our part of the team was scouting from Joshua Station and there was another part of the team in a different area of the city.

Liz: And Tim was supervising you, right?

Peter: Yeah, and Darren Prince was supervising the other part of the team. That’s where I really got to know him; he’d come see what we were up to when he came to town.

Liz: And now we’re going to be teammates with Darren in London! Crazy. So you were living with all these families in this motel; what did you do day to day? Was there a day to day?

Peter: It certainly varied a bit. There was usually a mix of getting up, going running with one of my teammates, probably eating with the team. We spent a decent chunk of the summer taking Joshua Station kids to a Vacation Bible School a church was running and helped out there with our kids. There were a couple dozen kids, all ages. And evenings were pretty chill. We’d spend time eating dinner and hanging out with the families or staff, playing on the playground with little guys or chilling with older teens. Stuff like that.

Liz: So what’d you learn from all this hanging out?

Peter: Sharing a meal is a great way to form a relationship. And good ministry is not something to be done alone; there are things you can do, and things you can’t do. You need a team and resources so the people you’re working with fill in the gaps you have.

And the best opportunities for meaningful, deep conversations or moments or experiences really do tend to happen more when you’re just being intentional about being present.

When you’re sharing life together, waiting for it to come up and looking for those moments rather than trying to force it out through fancy programs and discussion and stuff. I mean, those things are useful, but the conversations that come up in life usually have a lot more impact.
So sitting around looking like you’re not doing anything actually really does do something.

Liz: So was this where you learned about this really relational style of ministry?

Peter: Well, I had learned most of it before, but it was all theory. Denver was where I got to actually try it out and work at it, and see what it looked like. So more than anything it was a huge affirmation of what I believed about ministry.

Liz: And what happened after that?

Peter: Well, you went to Thailand, and I went back to Wheaton all alone, to manage the Stupe.

Liz: Um, sorry about that. But I came back to Chicagoland to hang out at Reba Place after that…

—FLASHBACK—

Peter: Hey Tim. Liz has a free semester before she graduates. Do you know any place near Chicago she can live and learn from cool people before we get married?

Tim: Well, our church has a sister community right outside Chicago in Evanston called Reba Place Fellowship. It’s an intentional Christian community– they share their money, cars, housing, the works. And they have an intern program. You should give them a call.

(Liz does, which ensues in her joining the Reba interns. Which ensues in visiting Reba’s church plant in Chicago, Living Water. Which is the church she and Peter attend after they get married. Which is the church where Peter becomes the youth pastor a year later. We still blame this all on Tim.)

—Four Months Later—

Delnor Woods Park, St. Charles, Illinois. The day before graduation from college. Some chairs set up under a grove of trees. Lots of people spread out on blankets in front.

We see Liz coming down the aisle in a white dress with her mom and dad, heading toward Peter and Father George at the front, singing along joyously with the congregation…

All creatures of our God and King
Lift up your voice and with us sing….

As she goes by some of Peter’s team from Denver, she sees Tim Lockie sitting next to them…. Peter’s teammates have pirate eyepatches, and Tim is wearing a cowboy hat.

Coming soon: Part three: All our friends keep joining InnerCHANGE….

Tagged as: InnerCHANGE