Church: Home of the Homeless

I am blessed to be a part of a church that cares.  It really does.  Lowell Church of Christ has several missions and local outreach.

However, even when looking at my church, I am left wondering:  Is this all God desires for us?

Today I start discussing the issue of church and poverty, and the first thing we need to ask is simply:  What does God expect of us as Christians and as his Church?  Today I want to make three observations:

1. God desires his church to do more than give.  Luke 4 makes quite clear that we are to proclaim good news to the poor.  Proclamation of good news goes far beyond handing a check out to someone.  It means providing the means to lift someone into a better life (physically, emotionally, and spiritually).

2. God intends the church to be more than a support center.  The New Testament, including Luke 4, provides insight that the church will actually be filled with  the poor.  They will be part of us.  It should be our job to treat with equality those of lesser means, and hopefully bring them to equality.  We must stop looking at the impoverished around the world as "other" and start looking at them as "one of us."

3. God intends the church to be the standard-bearer for worldwide justice.  If you have not done it yet, read Luke 4.  God wants to make the world a place of justice.  He intends to use the Church, the hands and feet of Jesus, to be the leaders of this movement toward equality and hope.


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I have heard the many who worry about this so called "social gospel."  Somehow, by focusing our attention on the statements of Christ that challenge us to do, to act, to live with compassion, we challenge the grace alone gospel.  I do not agree.

Grace breeds grace. As we come into contact with the grace of God that forgives sins, it leads us to tangibly display this grace.  Grace begats worship that challenges the "who we are" with the "who we were created to be."  Grace begats love which leads to compassion.

Grace must be followed by more grace.  Grace leads us to care for the poor.

I Want To Be Lost

My pulse rose quickly. Not so anymore. Today I am no longer the panic stricken kid who can't find his mommy and daddy in the museum. I am no longer the dependent or the destitute. I am no longer the sick...and a hollowness rings within me as a state this truth.

I long to be lost.

I want to forget who I am.

When I was lost, unsure, inept I was desperate. Desperation drove my soul forward, searching for my place in the world, seeking Daddy, the Holder-Together-Of-All-Things that held me in the web of his life. I had no idea why I was here, what He would want with me, I just knew that I was here, and I desperately needed to be with Him.

Four years of theological training and I know have answers. Not all the answers, but answers. I have studied myself to a point of Know-It-Allness that I have forsaken my panic induced striving after the one Holy-Know-It-All (for he Made-It-All). I have become the doctor--the one bringing answers to those who are desperate.

In my learning of the answers, I lost my desperation. Loss of desperation kills.

...It means I no longer seek (how then can I find?)

...It means I am no longer sick (how can I be made well?)

...It means I am no longer fragmented (how can I be made whole?)

I know (thanks to my ever so great self-knowledge) that I am still reliant on the Source; that I am being made well and whole and complete and perfect according to His blueprints for my soul...

...but some days I miss the desperation of the start, the days when whine my prayers out into a tear stained pillow...

...for it was in the start that I felt the gentle God arms on my shoulder, not telling me where to go, but revealing that He Is.