i get by with a little help from my friends...

I know I have posted a lot in the past 24 hours, but this is something that I read that I thought was really good. I was on the Emergent Village website, just looking around and I found the blog for Rick McKinley, "perhaps best known as Donald Miller’s pastor." I found his latest post to hit the nail on the head as far as some topics that The Cooke and I were discussing a few months ago.

I'll link it here.

Rick was discussing the subject of the church being involved in their local community. I will put on here the main two parts that I thought were right on -

4. Join the city in what they are already doing

Too often we (the church) think we need to invent and brand everything that we do in the city. This just perpetuates the false shell of our own subculture. Instead look for opportunities that already exist in the city. There are tons of non profits in your town. They are dying for people who will join them in their work. We get to saddle up to people who share Kingdom passion. They may not know it is Kingdom passion because they may not know the King yet. But as you serve them and with them serve others you gain a voice into their lives and they into yours. You also build viability for the Gospel. They begin to trust that you are not going to try to Colonialise their organization and make t-shirts that say “we saved Bob’s aids hospice”.

5. No Logo, No Ego

We are guilty in the church for wanting to take credit for everything we do. That is quite different from not letting the right hand know what the left hand is doing. We call the press to come and see us put a blanket on a homeless guy. I think Jesus has some pretty stern words for that. Instead we are learning that in joining these others we don’t need to get our name on their letter head. In fact our name never needs to be mentioned. We just don’t even go down those roads. If the press never learns of what we do, who cares. The one who sent us sees it all and he is the one we are serving.

We are also learning to be humble. It is too easy to announce that the church has found the answers to someone else’s problems and then present our 7 step strategy to fix it. We don’t know thier needs. We don’t live in their world, so we are learning to listen. It is a lesson we keep learning. Instead of telling them what we are here to do, we begin by asking what would be the greatest benefit to them. What would they love for us to do. Then we adapt to that and serve their needs. The end result is at first they are astonished. This is not the kind of help most are used to. Then they begin to trust you. This is trust you need to earn without a word, let your actions speak first. Finally you get invited in for a long term sustainable mission.

After the event the other day one of the principles asked if we could come back throughout the year and lead their students in continuing to work on the garden and teach them principles of creation care. The theater we worked at has opened their doors for us to do events on faith and art. It doesn’t take much just humility.

Part of leading our people into the mission of God is leading them to do justice. We need to wed this piece tightly to the proclamation of the message of Jesus. The irony is that one without the other is like offering someone a pair of pants with only one leg. The message of a loving God who is bringing new life through Jesus’ death and resurrection is easy to hear after you have experienced that love through the justice of Gods people.