Christian Living

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I met David on the streets of Cincinnati a little over a year ago. From a distance, he looked disheveled, and I wondered if he was homeless. He was standing on the corner of a busy intersection near the University of Cincinnati and as I waited with a group of people to cross the busy street I watched him. People streamed past him, without noticing, as he spoke into the air. As I crossed the street in a mass of humanity, I could see the features of his face, it was a face that had lived hard and known real pain. He was holding a stack of tracts and a paper cup with suckers in it. As the crowd moved passed, I stopped and faced him. He looked terrible, worn out and used and with a gruff voice he introduced himself. We stood there on that busy street corner in Cincinnati, people streaming past oblivious to us, and we spoke. We talked about life and about heartache and the Giants he had faced and waged war against and how he had come to be standing on that corner. He spoke about heroin and crack and the addiction that destroyed his family and nearly took his life many times. He told me about this church, in the ghetto, that had welcomed him in and given him rest when he had nowhere left to turn. He lived there while he fought the battle of his life, the battle for his life, and off the drugs that had enslaved him. While he was still an addict, they showed him the radical acceptance of Christ and loved him, even when he didn’t love himself. He told me that Jesus Christ is alive because he had met him there at that church in the ghetto and that He was there, strengthening him, while he waged a war against the addiction that had stolen so much of his life. He told me it was the power of Jesus that brought him back from the dead. Now, here on the street, he was standing in the cold to tell anyone who would hear that Jesus Saves! We prayed there in the middle of the chaotic motion of humanity, there at that intersection, for strength and guidance and thanksgiving. I bought two suckers, took a tract, and then we parted.

What struck me about David’s story, what I find so encouraging and so depressing, is that the Church accepted him, even while he was still a sinner, still enmeshed in drugs, and in doing so, showed him the outrageous love of Jesus Christ. That little Ghetto Church showed David the Love of Christ, and I would love to say that I have met many other David's in my life, but I haven't. Overwhelmingly more often I have met people who have had much different experiences with the Church. Many times the story is one of rejection and sorrow and hopelessness. I myself have experienced the heartache of being rejected by the Church, and those who are paid extremely well to run it, right here in Lima, Ohio, at one of the biggest and most popular churches around. I fear that it is rampant today, we Christians thinking, for some reason, that we decide who is or isn't a Christian, or worthy to be included in "The Body of Christ". We say things that sound religious, yet many times, our actions do not agree with our words. We may say, "Come as you are", but when people actually open up and gain the courage to be vulnerable among the "The Body", they are rejected for it, or turned away, or excluded from participating in ministry, like I was. It leaves me feeling sad and disappointed and with many questions with difficult answers about our churches.

What is a Christian?
Or, better question, who is a Christian?
What are the prerequisites of following Christ? Or being a member of His Church?
Why do our congregations today seem so much more like social clubs for the elite than hospitals for the weary sinner?

Jesus says to come to Him, ALL who are weary, and He will give you rest. He doesn’t give any prerequisites to a relationship with Him, just “come to me.†If that’s the case, why do we, "The Body of Christ" find it our Holy Vocation to impose rules and guidelines, written or implied, to being welcome in our congregations? Sure everyone says, "Anyone could come to my church", but that is not true. I have visited churches dressed down, looking pathetic and near homeless, and though I wasn't turned away, the reception I got at most places was not acceptance, not even close.

Before I found our new home church ("The Church" @ Allentown), while I was visiting churches in the Lima area, it was so hard to find Jesus, and I looked, hard. What I found were Churches much like the one we left, full of smiling, happy, plastic, middle class white people, separated into closed social groups of friends with a few stragglers and wanna-bee's lost in-between. Jesus was there, but man you had to look hard to find him. People who are not the coolest, not the best looking, not rich, not important, nobody's, people like me, get passed over and pushed aside. Sadly, I believe that most of our churches are not places where a homeless man would be loved, or a gay couple accepted, where a black family is included, or where the poor would be allowed to lead. Places were Jesus is a brand name, a sales gimmick, or a magic genie, not Lord, and definitely not a personal and merciful Savior.

Where did we go wrong? When did it become the Church's mission to gain followers, raise money and build new elaborate buildings? When did we start raising more noise protesting against sinners, than we raise in worship? When did we decide that Pastor is a job title and not a spiritual gift? When did "Church" become a place you get dressed up in your finest clothes, put on your best behavior for, and should go to if you are a "good" person for a couple hours a week, instead of a family of sinners reaching out, arms always open, embracing and picking up other sinners who are weary from life and searching for answers?

Don't agree with me, that’s fine, I fully expect that, especially since most of you who will read this are the very people that I am writing about in this blog. You don't see because you are too busy trying to be a "good" Christian. You are so preoccupied with doing stuff and belonging to a group inside the church that you have forgotten what it is like to look into the Church from the outside. Here's a question, what happens at your church next weekend when a black crack head, coming down off of Saturday night’s fix, filthy and disgusting and smelly, with all of the ugliness of drug addiction, comes walking into your congregation? I am willing to bet that more than a few of your congregants call the police, and more than likely he is asked to leave before he even sits down in a pew. Somehow, I don’t think that’s what Jesus would do.

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