From 7/10/06
Bell talked at length about his church, Mars Hill, in this episode. Two stories stood out the most to me. First, that nearly 1,000 members of the church have begun attending an annual AIDS walk event in the Grand Rapids area, making it the largest of its kind in Michigan. How cool for the church to be known for that? Especially when compared to a time when AIDS instantly was paired with the homosexual community...and the church in turn paired with unwelcoming said community. What are we known for?
Along the same theme, he also told of a group of families from the church who intentionally moved into a low income area of Grand Rapids. As white families, they enjoyed acute minority status! These families did things to bring the Kingdom to this neighborhood including running after school tutoring programs and community art shows.
These stories stir a deep place in my heart that I somehow often neglect. I hear of these things and read books such as The Irresistible Revolution or Who Is My Neighbor - or I take part in the outreach events that our homegroup is a part of or am able to help a stranger - and I am reminded that i want to be living this way. But honestly I feel my participation is more the exception than the rule at present. What is it? It'd be easy to blame having a child, or being in school etc. But life's not going to get any easier! If I'm going to preach this, we need to be involved. Further, to loosely quote Claiborne from Revolution, "When I was involved in compassion ministry, feeding the poor, loving the lonely, caring for the downtrodden, scripture jumped off the pages and become alive." Bell says something similar in his "Dust of the Rabbi" talk. I want to be living this stuff and one of my passions is to promote Biblical literacy. It seems to authentically teach the living word, I would authentically live it!
LORD, we're open...guide us we pray
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