Wandering with Reckless Abandon

Before I really dive into this post, I feel like I really need to say a couple of things:

First, this post was originally supposed to be two separate posts, one aimed at talking about healing the city of Baltimore, the other reviewing Brian McLaren’s new book, everything must change. Needless to say, Brian screwed that up when what he wrote ended up being everything that I have been thinking lately, and applies to the city of Baltimore more than he knows, or planned.

Second, this post is going to piss some people off because it will hit too close to home for some. For others, it will not fit into the pretty little mold that has been Christianity in the modern age.

So, let’s jump in, shall we?

You know your problem? You pentecostals and you evangelicals specialized. You specialized in healing, in getting people born again, in creating financially successful churches- but you need to go beyond that. It’s time to get a better message- something bigger than just those things. If you stop there all your preaching is nonsense.

From page 27 of Everything Must Change, by Brian McLaren

I have been reading through Everything Must Change whenever I have the time of late, and when I read this passage, I nearly fell off the toilet (too much info?)… This is the statement made by a young man who works with HIV patients in one of the worst neighborhoods of Africa. To make it perfectly clear, these are not McLaren’s words, but the words of a young man who is fed up with the modern interpretation of the church in Africa… but they are the words of my heart as well.

You see, for a long time, I have felt that too many of our churches in this country have specialized. I wrote earlier on how they have focused on conversion, and how they miss the point of the gospel by focusing on such a small part of it. But I also think that we have focused on being financially successful. Let me correct that, I have worked at, and have friends that work at churches that are focused on being financially successful (whether they admit it or not). If the numbers work out, if the salaries are paid, if the offerings are enough, then everything is ok. I often wonder how many pastors in this day and age would continue to pastor if the church they shepherded could not pay them any longer.

We, as the church, need to realize that our message is greater than that…
We, as the church, need to realize that regardless of whether we are financially successful, we are called to something bigger…
We, as the church, need to begin to bring the Kingdom of God to the world around us.

A few weeks back, I heard Ed Norris talking about pastors driving Bentleys. Every time I hear these stories, I cringe. I am not saying that pastors are supposed to be poor suffering servants, struggling to make ends meet, but a Bentley? The discussion started as a conversation about churches in the Baltimore area using ATM’s in their lobbies to handle tithes, and then grew to the amount of Pastors in the city driving luxury cars, wearing expensive suits, and buying expensive houses.

All throughout this conversation I could not help but think about the fact that we are a city with a soaring murder rate, a horrendous drug problem, and a school system that is consistently failing to educate students. Then, I read the beginning section of the quote from above talking about how much destruction is done by the church. How people will, in an effort to show they have faith, quit taking their medication enabling a more resistant strain of HIV to develop. How people will become born again, and then be told that they need to tithe.

But they are still poor.
They are still sick.
They are still stuck in hell on earth.

What is needed, in South Africa and in Baltimore, is a way to make it impact their lives…
What is needed, in South Africa and in Baltimore, is a way to make this gospel actually make a difference…
What is needed, in South Africa and in Baltimore, is a hand out of hell.

As I soak and pray through what it looks like to be a part of a church plant in the city of Baltimore, I spend a great deal of time kicking around what it looks like to give people a hand out of hell.

In an earlier post Pete spoke about reaching the children…
I agree.

I sold a car to a school teacher a while back, during the paperwork I asked him what the biggest need in the schools were, what would make the biggest impact on the state of the school system. He told me that parent involvement is non-existent. He told me that on back to school night he is lucky to have one parent show up and that PTA gatherings will have maybe a half dozen people for the entire school. What would it look like for a body of people to come together and work to support a school the way that the PTA should?

I tried to sell a car to a lady who works in a halfway house a while ago (note, I said tried). I asked her what the biggest need of the city was right now. She told me that we have an incredible need for transitional housing. Housing for people who leave the penal system or rehabs, but have nowhere to live while they begin to get their lives back together. So they go back to what they know: the streets. What would it look like for a body of people to come together and begin to develop transitional housing to help people get back on their feet?

What if those same people that were being served through transitional housing were offered job training and placement? What if that same job training and placement were offered to the families of the students in the local schools?

Maybe I am being a bit idealistic or dreaming a little much, but I believe that when the church starts to act like the church in the city of Baltimore, we will begin to gain some traction on the issues that plaque the city. Call me a cynic, but I doubt that the city government will ever be able to fix what ails the city (truth be told, I do not believe that the politicians really want to fix the city). What the city of Baltimore needs now, more than ever, is for the church to start embracing her calling to bring the Kingdom to earth, and investing all of her energies and resources into making that happen…