How Do We Do It?
Several years ago I was going through the line at a discount grocery store. There was a young mom in front of me and she had two little children with her and one on the way. When she got through the line she realized she did not have enough money to buy everything she needed. She stood there with the cashier deciding what she could do without, so she could get within the dollar amount she needed. I noticed that what she was having the cashier put away were not frivolous items but just basic food products. It wasn’t ice cream and coke, but baby food and bread.
The Holy Spirit began to nudge me. He said “Offer to buy what she can’t afford”.
I said, “Lord I’m shopping at the discount grocer not because I’m trying to be thrifty but because I can’t afford anything else.”
The Spirit said, “Jeff, am I not your provider? I will make sure you have enough.”
So I waited until she had culled her groceries down to a level she could afford and then I spoke up saying that I would purchase the groceries she had separated out and that I would give them to her. It totaled somewhere near fifty dollars, which was a small fortune for me at that time. The woman and the cashier both looked at me in shock. I smiled and simply said that it was something the Lord wanted me to do so that she would know God loves her.
I paid the bill and guess what, my family didn’t starve.
There are opportunities every day for us to partner with God in loving the marginalized. It could be in the grocery line, the parking lot, walking along a city street, in our schools, neighborhoods, or even in places where there have been great disasters. The first thing that is needed for us not to miss these opportunities is awareness.
Awareness
In the gospel of John, Jesus tells us that his Father is always at work and that he too is working. What that means is that God is always up to something. No matter where we are or what we are doing, God is at work. Opportunities abound! God is at work in your workplace, at your school, in your neighborhood, and with your friends. The trick for you is to open your eyes and see what He is doing. You need to develop an awareness of where God is working.
The hard part about this is retraining our brain to not be centered on ourselves. I know that I walk around in a self-centered fog most of the time. I call it a fog because when I’m only concentrating on myself it makes it impossible to see the needs that are all around me.
I remember one time being in the Home Depot parking lot with a friend. We were picking up some tools for an outreach project our church was involved in. We hopped in his truck to head back to the building and my mind was already focused on my “to-do list,” when my friend stopped the truck and looked at me and said, “Come on.” In the parking lot was an older man wondering how in the world he was going to get this packaged hot water heater in the back of the truck. My friend ran right over to him and said, “My friend and I will help you.” With the three of us helping, it took a grand total of three minutes to get the water heater in the back of the truck.
I looked at my friend amazed. He was aware enough to see the need. I had not been. If we want to make a difference in the lives of the marginalized the first thing we’ve got to do is open our eyes and perceive what is going on around us; God is always at work.
Listen
Just as we’ve learned that God is always at work, we also know that he is always speaking. One of the things that we see in the book of Acts is that the Holy Spirit is constantly communicating with His people; guiding them and directing them on their mission to make disciples of all nations. He speaks to them in visions, dreams, signs and wonders, angelic visitations, in a still small voice that seems to urge them on, through each other, and through the Hebrew Scriptures themselves. In the New Testament we get the picture that God is intimately involved in the decision making process with His people. The question we must ask ourselves is “Do we get any indication that this process is supposed to cease?” Some may try to point to 1 Corinthians 13 where the Apostle Paul says that tongues will cease and prophecy will be stilled. A closer reading of the text reveals that this will occur “when perfection comes” or an easier way to understand that might be to say that when Jesus returns and “sets all things to right” we will no longer need the spiritual gifts of prophecy and tongues because God will be all in all. Until that day, we need God’s Spirit speaking and directing our life in every way possible. God is speaking to us; all the time. We need to learn to listen.
So how do we do that? First we need to ask God what He’s up to or what He wants us to do in a given circumstance. There are many times when I’m in conversation with someone and I realize the question they are asking me is way out of my league, so as I’m talking to that individual I send up a silent prayer, and the prayer is usually, “HELP!!!!!”
That happened to me the other day when I was volunteering with some kids. I was working with some teenagers and we were talking about reading. I asked them what they were reading right now and was it influencing their lives. Each one of the kids began to talk about the book he or she was reading and what he was learning from it. One of the kids talked about a book called the “The Secret.” It is one of those self-help, “I am God and can have whatever material thing I desire” - type books. In other words, it’s the gospel according to Oprah. I was in a setting where I was not allowed to talk about my faith openly and was wondering how to handle this conversation. I immediately felt out of my league. So I silently let go a favorite prayer, “HELP!” and I tuned in and began to listen.
Sure enough, the Spirit began to speak to me. He told me not to belittle or tear down the book but to ask what he liked about the book. So I did, I asked him what he liked about the book and he told me that it talked about having a dream or a destiny and not giving up on that dream or destiny. He said the book talked about the fact that many people would try to get you to give up on your dream. I replied that I knew what it was like to have a dream, and that I too had discovered that there were many voices that would come and try to convince me to give up on that dream. Some of the voices were very familiar; they could be family, friends, or colleagues. I said I had also discovered that those voices seemed to be influenced by something bigger, something that wanted me to give up and be discouraged.
One of the girls said, “That voice is the voice of the devil.” I said, “Really, tell me about that?” She began to explain how she had learned in church that the devil hated us and wanted us to amount to nothing, that he spoke very negative things into our life. I asked her if she had experienced that before and she said yes as did all the other kids and they began to share stories about how there seemed to be voice that spoke into their lives that was negative and would try to get them to believe hurtful things.
I asked if that was the only voice they ever head and the same girl said no that God would speak to her and he would tell her positive things, encourage her and build her up. I asked what the rest of the group thought about that and some said they had experienced the same thing, others said that made a lot of sense. I thought God you are so cool. I had just watched a teenager tell her peers how to hear the voice of God by simply asking one kid what he liked about a book that I did not feel was a very theologically healthy book to read.
I don’t know about you, but I’m just not smart enough to navigate life without God’s direction. I’m also too self-centered to be aware of what God’s doing around me if I don’t take the time to ask. However, I find most of the times when I ask, God is more than happy to share with me exactly what He is up to.
Act
I know this sounds self-explanatory but when God asks us to do something we need to be the type of people who actually do it. To incorporate action into our lives is going to mean one thing; risk.
Let’s face it, when God asks us to do something we feel uncertain about it. We ask questions like “Is that really God? “Am I just making that up?” and “What if I’m wrong?” Rachel Garvey presented a message to us the other day and said the greatest enemy to action is not laziness but excuses. We will talk ourselves out of just about anything that involves risk.
But faith is all about risk. It’s about stepping out into the unknown and realizing that God really does have our back.
A year and half ago God asked our church to take the greatest risk in its history. He asked us to trust Him. Instead of walking the path most every other church travels by taking on lots of debt and building a building, God asked us if we would be willing to identify our self with our community. Were we willing to be incarnational? Would we move into a fifty year old high school, go portable, and wait on Him to reveal to us our next step? We said, “yes,” not being fully aware of what He was asking us to do.
Now a year and half later we’ve come to realize that the key to changing our city lies with the people who are served by our public schools. Within the lowest performing schools in our city are Chattanooga’s marginalized. 42% of the kids that go to Howard, Brainerd, and Tyner High Schools never graduate. I have it from some reliable sources who say that percentage increases to even greater heights when you think of the kids who are just passed through the system. Chattanooga’s other high schools are not graduating much higher percentages (All high school graduation rates for Hamilton County schools is on the Hamilton County Department of Education website). Every year thousands of young adults are spilling into our city without even having a high school diploma. What kind of job can they get? What kind of future do they have? What types of opportunities are open to them?
When this happens over a period of years, crime increases, infant mortality goes through the roof, poverty, desperation and hopelessness set in and our taxes are raised because it puts a drain on every social system our government provides. This is exactly the challenge our city faces today. Do you want to imagine what the consequences will be if we ignore this problem for another five or ten years?
This is the issue God has asked our church to deal with. I can’t tell you how excited I am by this, because I can think of no other area of investment that has the potential to yield as great a Kingdom return. But this endeavor is for the risk takers. It is for those who want more out of their relationship with God than being comfortable. Within our first year of being in Tyner, 50% of our congregation left, but 50% stayed! Our church is now like Gideon’s army in the Old Testament. We are a group of seasoned warriors ready to take the fight to the enemy.
This is faith in action. It is what happens when we become aware of what’s going on around us. We listen to what God says, and we take action. I’m going to make a bold prediction. I believe the more we engage in the risky ministry that God has given us; the more we champion the cause of the least, last, lost, and lonely, the more people will join us in our efforts. People want to be a part of something significant. This will do more than give our city a cosmetic face-lift, like the investment in our downtown (which is cool). It will change the nature of our city.
Engage
How do we begin? We’ve got to learn the habit of engaging. We’ve got to roll up our sleeves and get involved. It will start out as a spiritual discipline at first. Something we begin to do because we know that it is right. It then becomes normal, and before long we wonder how we ever lived without serving the marginalized as a consistent part of our lives.
The way we are doing this at the Vineyard is through our different outreach opportunities. Once a month our Patton Towers team goes downtown and delivers groceries to the handicapped in a government subsidized housing complex. Every week we feed the hungry in Miller Park after church on Sunday’s. Some of us engage in servant evangelism where we do simple acts of kindness as a means of communicating God’s love through Kindness is Normal. Others do service projects at the Tyner Schools, and some go out on the streets and pray for people. These activities are highlighted in our bulletin every week and are a regular part of our church’s life. You just need to make a discipline of jumping in and getting involved.
If you will seize these opportunities, they will develop a habit in your life. The habit over time will become what’s normal. This is where the rubber hits the road. It will be in these practical exercises of risk, service, and faith where you begin to grow spiritually like you have never grown before. This is where you start. Take the risk.
God has always loved the marginalized. He has asked us, the people of the Vineyard Chattanooga to do the same. As for me and my family, we will see it done.
