I saw something beautiful last week.I walked outside the public school where our church has made its home for the last several years and saw our teenagers playing the opening game at our youth group meeting.When I looked at them it was beautiful, firstbecause there was a group of kids learning to be the Christ-centered community that is the church, and second because it was almost fully racially integrated.It looked like the actual demographic make up of the city of Chattanooga.Kids from different races, different socio-economic backgrounds, different cultures were becoming friends and learning to do life together.It was picture of the in-breaking of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. When the rule of God is fully established on earth as it is in heaven it will look like our youth group did on Wednesday night.
I then walked inside where my wife, Kellie, and a couple of wonderful leaders in our church were starting a new Wednesday night outreach to the elementary aged siblings of the teenagers from the neighborhood in which our church is located.You see, the teenagers have been bringing their younger siblings with them to church on Wednesday nights.It’s not uncommon for us to have eight or nine of these siblings.We had been just providing childcare with some crafts and a movie, but we felt like there was an incredible opportunity to communicate the love of Jesus with children who were literally coming to our doorstep.
We pulled out one of our old children’s ministry curriculums and decided to give it our best shot.This was our first week to give it a go, and wouldn’t you know, it was the evening we had the smallest amount of elementary kids since they began showing up; we only had two, yet undeterred we went forward.The kids were a brother and sister that had very limited exposure to the church.We broke ourselves into a boys and a girls team, each consisting of two adult leaders and a child.We played the games, we cheered, we memorized scripture, and the enthusiasm we were showing as adult leaders infected thekids and they smiled, laughed, and cheered right along with us.You could tell they were really eating up the attention they were getting from the adults.
After the games and competition portion, we broke into smallgroups and began to talk about what it means to have a relationship with Jesus.We talked about praying a prayer to accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior.The children told us they had never prayed a prayer like that.We asked them if they wanted too and they responded yes.Now I don’t think these second and third graders connected all the dots as to what it means to belong to Jesus, but I think it was their first step on a life long journey of growing closer to God.
The last few years have been tough for me personally.Our church was the thriving hipster church in town.We were the cool place to be.We leased a beautiful contemporary building with soft cushy seats.We had over 500 people and I was thought of as being somebody in the Vineyard Movement.But the Lord (and there is no doubt about that) called us to leave our facility and move into an “at-risk” school in our city.Within seven months we lost 50% of our congregation.Since then we have turned over 75% of our church, but we’ve added people too, which has given us a net loss of about 55% over three years.I’m no longer really thought of as “somebody” within our movement, and we are definitely no longer the “cool” church.Many of our hipster types have hipped themselves right out the door.I have had many on my leadership team leave telling me I just don’t have the goods anymore.Yet, as I see a youth group that was as white as an Easter lily become fully integrated, as I pray with children who have never heard what Jesus has done for them and are now hearing it because we’ve parked ourselves in the middle of their neighborhood, I think maybe God does use the foolish things to confound the wise and maybe there is something about that opening section in the Gospel of John where we read that the Word becaming flesh and dweling among us.Maybe, just maybe, the church was meant to be more than just an entertainment for the wealthy, and the spoiled, and the coddled, but rather a courageous community that is to go where few dare with the proclamation of the Kingship of Jesus.
A couple of Christmases ago I was inconvenienced. Our house is the first house in our subdivision and sits on a busy street. Literally thousands of cars drive by our house everyday.
We had some real estate signs that we had made for our church to help people know where we were located. Then we got this brand new sign that was much more effective, so I brought the real estate signs home to my house. Since I lived on such a busy street, I decided to put one of these signs in my yard because it had our web address displayed so predominately. I thought, free advertising, people pay major bucks to have advertising access like this, so the signs sat proudly displayed in my front yard.
Chattanooga is home to a thousand churches. I mean that in the most literal sense. Christian researcher and analyst, George Barna has remarked that Chattanooga is the most churched city in the United States, and seeing that the U.S. is the most churched nation in the world, that means we must be close to the most churched city in the world.
I figure that is true because from time to time people would remark on how they thought our church met in our home because of the sign. I didn’t think much of it; I just hoped they’d check out the website.
All that changed one Christmas afternoon.
Life for a pastor’s family is pretty busy. We are constantly around people; hosting things, leading things, and that is especially true during the Christmas season. For a pastor it doesn’t let up until after the Christmas Eve service which our church hosted two of that year; one in the early evening and one at 11pm. That year the service itself ended at 12am. I was lucky to be home by 1am and then there was the putting together of presents. My day that year ended about 3:30am on Christmas morning. My kids were up just a little after 6am, but it was all good, because it was just us this particular Christmas; just the six of us. No one else was coming over. There was no set time for anything. It was just enjoy the day, and we were, until…
Right as I was getting ready to start dinner there was a knock at my door. It was a homeless woman. I wish I could tell you my heart was filled with Christmas love and cheer, but all I could think was, “No Lord, not today, not on Christmas!”. I asked what she wanted and she said she saw the sign in my yard. She figured we were either a church or that a pastor lived here, she asked which it was, I said pastor. She asked if she could come in. I said yes. We made her a glass of hot wassail and asked what she wanted.
She gave me about three different stories which is pretty common among people who are begging. The truth was somewhere on the edge of those three stories. She was trying to tell me anything that would touch on my heart so that I would allow her to stay. You’ve got to understand that lying to a pastor is kind of like lying to a cop. We’ve heard it all before and we are pretty good at tracing the misdemeanor to the felony. What it boiled down to was she was homeless and didn’t want to spend Christmas in a shelter. She had been walking in this area trying to find someone who’d let her have Christmas with them. She didn’t say that, but I knew what she was after.
I got my associate pastor on the phone because he was the one who dealt with all of our benevolence issues. I told him the story and asked what I should do and he laughed. He told me he’d find out what shelter was open and he’d give me a call back. So I went in to her and said my associate pastor was making some phone calls and was finding a shelter that could take her for the night. I could tell that she was not very pleased with that idea and she began to ask what we were going to have for Christmas dinner. I was thinking to myself nothing, because dealing with you is taking up to much time.
I looked over at my family, and it was funny how quickly the atmosphere had changed. What half an hour before had just been light hearted and completely stress free was now tense and uncertain. They didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to do. The only one who seemed happy with the current state of affairs was the homeless lady. About 15 minutes later my associate pastor gave me a call back with a shelter’s name and directions. I was relieved. I was ready for this to be someone else’s problem. I went in and told her we had found a shelter for her and that it was better equipped to take care of her needs. I said that there would be food there, a warm bed, and a place to get cleaned up. So I told her to come and get in the car and I would drive her to the shelter. She said O.K.
From the moment we got in the car she started telling me how horrible shelters were. She told me how she didn’t want to go, and by the time we are about three miles down the road she told me to let her out, she didn’t want to go to a shelter. I was tired of arguing with her so I said fine, and pulled over into a parking lot and let her out.
I began to drive back home thinking, “Well, I tried to do the right thing.” One of the things that can really stink about being a Pastor is you know the Bible really well, and the following passage of scripture popped right into my mind.
MT 25:31 The Judgment of the Nations
"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33 and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. 34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, 'Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.' 37 Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? 39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?' 40 And the king will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.' 41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, 'You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.' 44 Then they also will answer, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?' 45 Then he will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.' 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."
God began to speak to me. He said, “I came to your house for Christmas dinner Jeff, and you turned me away.”
The condition of my heart was laid bare before me. I realized I talked a good talk but my action did not line up with what my heart professed to believe. I have come to believe that was one of my worst moments, one of those things that if I could step back and do differently I would. Can you imagine the teachable moment for my family if we had treated that lady like Jesus had come to visit us on Christmas? The impact and lesson that could have been driven into my kid’s hearts is unfathomable, instead they learned we shouldn’t be inconvenienced on Christmas.
When I got home I walked right over to that stinking sign in my front lawn, pulled it out of the ground, and threw it across my back yard. There was something wrong with my heart. My actions did not match up with my beliefs. I still feel sick to my stomach every time I think about it.
I think I’m not alone in this. My experience is that lots of people like to talk about how important it is for the church to have a heart for the least, the last, the lost, and the lonely, but very few people are willing to be inconvenienced to the point of actually doing something.
God has really done some work on me with this one. Compassionate ministry to the marginalized of society is not an option. It certainly is not an option according to scripture. If we are serious about following Jesus then developing a heart for the least, last, lost, and lonely that works itself out through practical consistent action is a must.
Over the next couple of days we are going to be looking at ministry to the marginalized. We will see how God has a heart for the forgotten in both the Old and New Testament. We are going to look at how serving the marginalized is a sign of the coming Kingdom, how the failure of our public systems is creating more and more marginalized people in Hamilton County, and what I believe God’s plan is to address these issues through the Vineyard Church. Those of us who faithfully commit to this will see God’s Kingdom come to earth in a very special way.
