Another thing that confuses me...

It is very easy to idealize ministry in other places. Especially other places where the needs are so much greater (the inner city and Africa for example). We get frustrated with the people around us and want to go where the people really need us and somehow deserve our help unlike these ungreatful sinners all around us in our current location (anybody's current location and I'm not specifically talking about anybody in Mount Vernon).

Well, I read an article in last weeks Newsweek called "The Lessons Tulia Teaches." (December 19th, pg.44) Tulia is a town in Texas that had a big scandal because the local sherriff wrongly arrested 47 African Americans on drug charges and they all went to jail. Luckily people stood up for justice and the people were released from prison. One of the people who stood up for justice was a local pastor and it cost him his job. Listen to what he had to say "'I had always believed the truth shall set you free,' said Bean. 'In the end...it took a misrepresentation of the facts to get these people justice.' By that, he means that in order to fuel the crusade, he and his allies had to make the victims appear more innocent than they were an the town more eveil than it actually is."

I know the people I live with in the West End arefar from innocent. They have done plenty of stuff to get them in the messes they are in. That's why I want to go to Africa or the inner city where it's not there fault and the people deserve help. What I realize is that whever I go (and I don't want to leave Mount Vernon) I'm not going to find people who are innocent, who really deserve my help.

I heard a lot about that guy in California who just got executed. He was made out to be a saint. Even if he wasn't guilty of the specific murders he was charged with, the gang he started was responsible for hundreds, if not thousands of murders. He was far from innocent.

So what's my point in all of this? We are not called to help the innocent, cause there are none. We are called to get involved in people's lives who are messy and really don't deserve our help. We are called to stand up for the guy on death row, not because he is innocent, but because he was made in the image of God and though the image is distorted, we want to see it redeemed. We are called to love our neighbor who is grumpy and hates us, not because he deserves it, but because God loves him as much as he loves us. We are called to get involved in lives that are so completely messy by their own creation, not because they deserve it either, but because that is the way of the Word who became flesh.

When it comes down to it, I'm not innocent and I don't deserve God grace. Who am I to be the one who keeps God's grace from another. We need to stop looking for the innocent or the deserving to help. We just need to help those who need help.

Church

So today in our church service we had 19 people. The fewest amount of people we've had in a long time, but we knew it would be that small with the holidays and such. But everyone there was like family, all committed Christ followers. I didn't care we were so small, instead we adapted and did things that we can't do when we have a large crowd. I felt like we worshiped this morning. I felt like we were who we were suppossed to be as the people of God in the West End of Mount Vernon.

Yet on Sundays when we have lots of people (lots for us is 50-60) and non Christ followers present we do things different. We're not so bold to do things that the people of God do. For enstance today we gathered in a circle with held hands and people prayed as they felt led. If we had visitors there I would have felt reluctant to do some of that or other simular stuff at the risk of making them feel uncomfortable.

So my point in all of this is that I worry that I let visitors, especially the non Christian ones, dictate how we practice being the people of God. It causes me so much confusion because we all have such a strong desire to reach out into the lost world, but in doing that we have this tendency to lose sight of who we are to be as the people of God. Another example: a few weeks ago a neighbor came to church with us and during my "pastoral prayer" I was tempted to not be so radical or bold so I wouldn't make her think we were too radical in our faith. I shook off the temptation and prayed the way I needed to, but still the temptation was there. Reaching out to the world around us in part of what we need to be as the people of God, but it is not supposed to form who we are as the people of God. I'm confused.