I want to share something kind of exciting that has been happening with our home church group the past few weeks.
For quite awhile now, we’ve been talking about becoming more missional in our approach to faith. The concept that Jesus is already working in the earth, and that we simply need to look for what He’s doing and step into that–this is a revolutionary concept to most of us. (Most of our backgrounds have to do with Jesus-as-a-sales-pitch evangelism, something that we all felt guilty for not doing, but avoided nonetheless.) So we’ve been praying for some time, both for God to show us how to be more aware of His mission in the course of our lives, and for some direction for how we could walk it out as a group.
But up to now, most of it has been talk. And, of course, talk is cheap. But when you’re a bit fearful of something new…talking about it at least makes you feel better about it. For awhile.
We were getting…well, stale. And restless. Talking about being missional wasn’t making us feel better anymore.
So during a time of worship a few weeks ago, we began to pray earnestly together for God to show us what to do. As we began sharing what was in our hearts, we felt strongly that we needed to do something–anything, no matter how seemingly small or insignificant–to put feet to our faith. But with a small group such as ours, many of whom have of late been struggling financially from the economy issues–what could we do? We were in the midst of a heat wave, and it was nearing 104 degrees Farenheit outside; so The Wild One put forward the idea of going out with bottled water to give to the homeless in downtown Tulsa, who no doubt must be suffering in the heat.
For the first time in I don’t know how long…the light came on in the eyes of our people. This was something we could do together, a financial sacrifice we could all make without breaking us…and it was something that would meet a real need. A genuine excitement began churning.
Now, I can hear some of you more missional-type people chuckling at the simplicity of this. But I’m just being real here–you have to understand how huge this was for this group, and for its pastor. 🙂 This going downtown to interact with the homeless thing is totally out of my element–one whose comfort zone is safe within the walls. I mean…I’ve got a dear friend in Florida who has a group just about our size, and they are feeding over 200 families once a month. But hey–you have to start somewhere. And it was apparent this was something our people could really latch onto.
We determined to forego our meal the following week, take the money we would have spent on food and spend it on bottled water and ice, gather what coolers we had among us, and go downtown together the following Sunday.
That was our first mis-step. We should have gone that very afternoon. I was trying to make a way for those who couldn’t make it that day to come participate…but the heat wave broke that week, and the next Sunday it was 83 degrees. And rainy. In Tulsa. In August. Go figure.
Crap. What do you do–pray for God to send the heat back so people will suffer again so we can go be the heroes? So…we stacked up all the bottled water in our kitchen and decided to try again the following Sunday.
That next weekend, it still wasn’t all that warm, and for different reasons a lot of our folks couldn’t come. But those who could, decided we just would. We would just get out there and give away some water. So we did.
It was amazing.
It wasn’t that we found a whole lot of homeless people. One of our folks, one who works at a mobile medical clinic for the needy, suggested we’d picked a time too close to mealtime, that many of them were probably at the shelters eating. But those people we found seemed genuinely amazed and pleased that someone was doing this–and very thankful for the water.
No sermons. No shoving Jesus down people’s throats. We didn’t even say where we were from unless someone asked us. We were just there, doing what was in our power to do to meet a legitimate need. And I recognize that the people who mattered were the ones who needed the water, that you shouldn’t do these kinds of things simply for how they make you feel. But I can’t lie–it felt awesome. It felt like we had connected to Father’s business. And any personal fear of being out my comfort zone–it just wasn’t there.
So yesterday, several hours after our regular Sunday gathering, in the heat of the afternoon–a few of us went out again. We made some adjustments, took only one large cooler, and went downtown. We ran out of water in 20 minutes, and this time we didn’t have to do as much walking around–the people started seeking us out. Apparently, when you do something like that more than once, word starts spreading on the street. When we ran out of bottles, we offered the ice in the cooler. One guy took a plastic shopping bag and filled it with ice for himself.
So, once again, it turns out that God is teaching us by experience more than by words. Will we do this for the long term? I don’t know. What I do know is that we have now crossed a line, and we have tasted of the mission of Christ–with a few coolers of bottled water and a few willing hearts. What I do know is that even doing a little bit makes a difference. What I do know is that this is currently a need we can fill. So we’ll be back.
Wayward Son
Musician. Composer. Recovering perfectionist. Minister-in-transition. Lover of puns. Hijacker of rock song references. Questioner of the status quo.
I'm not really a rebel. Just a sincere Christ-follower with a thirst for significance that gets me into trouble. My quest has taken me over the fence of institutional Christianity. Here are some of my random thoughts along the way. Read along, join in the conversation. Just be nice.
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Awesome! Keep it up!
There was a book a few years ago called “Conspiracy of Kindness” – lots of good stuff in there about this kind of thing and what it did to reshape their church. I can’t remember who it’s by, I gave my copy away after we followed their example and used a couple of their projects in our town. Good stuff.
A bottle of water in His name.. how cool is that!!
Great post, Jeff. Exciting stuff. The book Steve mentioned is a great handbook for this approach to missions. The author is Steve Sjogren, a church planter in Cincinnati. In the back is a list of about 250 “random acts of kindness,” or practical ways to share the love of Christ. There is nothing better than watching the light go on in the eyes of our people when God uses them to touch someone with His love.
Fantastic! Thanks for sharing it us!
Steve and Drew,
Thanks for the tip. Seems to me I heard of that book when it came out,though I’ve not yet read it.
KB,
Yeah, gonna have to look that Scripture up. 🙂 Thanks!
Sarah,
You’re welcome. 😀 Thanks, and thanks to all, for the encouragment.