Blog
I Knew You’d Come
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- Category: Blog
- Published: Wednesday, 01 April 2015 13:47
Last week I attend World Vision’s Church Leaders Forum “Heart & Soul of the City”. Keynote speaker, John Fuder who hails from the windy city, brought passion, energy, and truth to a room full of pastors and leaders.
John spoke about reaching the people in the neighbourhoods around us, about going into the hard places, about asking questions, and being willing to learn. John was honest, raw and very funny. He spent the first part of his career working on skid row in California. Learning to love people the world had deemed unlovable and learning to laugh and appreciate life’s tough moments instead of growing jaded.
Two points John made have been floating around in my head this past week:
1. I knew you’d come
2. Sunday is the easy day
Point 1 – I knew You’d Come. John shared a story about a friendship he has with a man who lives on the street. In his early 20’s John felt called to street ministry. To really understand that world, he didn’t go to a class room, he didn’t read a book, rather he went to the streets and asked a man sitting on the corner to be his professor, to teach him. After many months of lessons, John’s friend ended up in jail. John got word of what had happened and instinctively, because this man is his friend, went to the jail and paid the bail to get his friend out. His friend looked at him and said “I knew You’d Come.” Powerful. It makes me think, would I come? Do my friends and neighbours think of me as a person who would come to their rescue, to come over at 1am to watch their child if they had to go the hospital or to drive the distance to hold their hand at their mom’s funeral? Do they know I’d come? Do I know if I’d go?
Point 2 – Sunday is easy. John challenges churches to stop spending so much time worrying about their Sunday morning service and how to get people into the seats. Rather, go to where the people are. Sunday should be a celebration of all God has done Monday through Saturday; it should not be a hard day. The church is measured outside the building. Does the church go into the depths of pain or stay out of the hard places? “In order to be FOR people we must be WITH people”. I love that line and this great line, “If you want to change the culture, change the church”.
I knew you’d come and Sunday is easy has been twirling around in my thoughts. How do I apply this to my life? How do I challenge my small group with these ideas? Day by day I suppose. I keep taking steps of faith; we keep pushing ourselves to go somewhere or to someone that scares us, that’s different out of our comfort zone. We trust that God will lead us, that He is all we need, that He will give us the words. Maybe knock on the door of your neighbor and give them a plate of cookies, who doesn’t smile to cookies? Dialogue is important but action is even more important.
This is not the first time I’ve written on this topic. And this past year I moved into a new apartment and I tried to get to know some of my neighbours. Not all of them took me up on my offer of becoming friends but at least we know each other’s faces and names. Although it doesn’t seem like much, a smile or a “how was your day?” is a step in the right direction and opens the door too much more possibility. Even the tiniest thing you contribute will be considered important by God and will be used for great things.
