Some 47 years ago, my sister, Sue, and her husband, John, just graduated from seminary, moved to Providence RI, bought a home in a poor, primarily black neighborhood ($12,000), made up some fliers and began knocking on doors. The message: “We’re starting a church in our home. We would love to have you visit us any Sunday morning.”
How John and Sue ever got onto this path is the theme of this blog. While the Evangelical community seems largely to be pushing forward with one foot in the Dream and the other in the Kingdom, this is a story of the power of God to invite us to go where we may not wish to be.
Few of us ever experience an Apostle Paul-like Damascus voice of God, but all of us are called to love others in the same way we invest love in ourselves. As in the case of Rev. John and Sue, we may find ourselves ministering in the most unlikely places.
God Repeating Himself in Odd Ways to Get My Attention:
John:
It was a random day in 1963. I was doing my laundry around 2:00 am in the laundromat at Lockbourne AFB, where I was stationed. A fellow serviceman came up to me, sat down, and asked me if I was saved. “What are you talking about, dude?” I asked. He began to explain and gave me a little red bible. “Thanks, but I’m not ready for that stuff right now,” I said and moved on – quickly.
The second time was from a fellow in our unit who had been the target of constant bullying from the guys. He hardly resisted at all! He seemed like a wimp to me, even covering for other guys’ work shifts. At one time I was driving on base and got behind his car. On the back window of his car were the words JESUS SAVES. “This guy must be some kind of religious freak!” Not ready nor interested yet!
In the fall of 1964, I was working in Foxboro, MA. I was introduced to a young lady by a friend who was offering me a ride to work. Sure enough; another so-called Christian! Sue immediately developed an intense dislike for me as I shot my mouth off trying to be funny. I can’t say that she actually wanted me to be sent directly to Hell, but she definitely wanted to get rid of me. One small problem: she had to ride with me to work every day.
Finding My Way Home ¼ Inch at a Time:
Eventually, we began to develop a bit of a relationship. I invited her to go with me to Boston to see a movie, and she accepted. That was the decision that changed the course of my life.
Sue:
Oh yeah! It was on a Sunday evening. I had to skip church to go to a movie, two things that in those days would send me straight to Hell! The only rationale for this was that the movie was, The Greatest Story Ever Told. The camera panned on the face of Jesus while He was dying. I was startled by sobbing coming from John. “What’s wrong?” I asked. He blurted, “My God, Sue! That was for me! He did that for me!”
Later that evening, while we were sitting and talking, John began praying what is comfortably known in evangelical circles as “The Sinner’s Prayer.” I had contributed absolutely nothing to this process. I didn’t know what to say! Immediately, after he finished, he said, “Sue, what about all those other people?” “What other people?” I asked. “The people who don’t know Him!” He had become a missionary at that exact moment, and he has never gotten over it! I have never recovered from it!
You might say that this was also my own cataclysmic moment. I had been raised in a Christian home, but I had never seen anyone so smitten and transformed as in this encounter of John with Jesus. Some 60 years have passed from that moment John and I crossed the Rubicon into the uncertain and unknown. My pastor/theologian brother, Stan, would likely define this as plunging into the “present, dynamic, victorious Kingdom of God” without a roadmap.
Transformation from Love of Self to Love of Others:
John:
Two transformations occurred that day that would change my life. (1) My worldview had suddenly shifted from ego-centricity to Christo-centricity. (2) My heart had begun a lifelong, painful turn – away from self-focus to an emerging love for others. My head and heart had been changed without my permission. God seemed to have been chasing me down like a “bloodhound”on the hunt.
This was no walk-down-the-aisle in an evangelistic church service. In fact, I can’t recall that I had ever been to one. It takes a whole lot more than a simple prayer to find peace and purpose with God, I think. Inexplicably, an encounter with God is in danger of leaving within us a renewed spirit of beginning to see others through the merciful love of Christ. It may take a lifetime of training, faltering discipline, and the encouragement of others to yield fruit. Can any of us “Christian entrepreneurs” be content with that?
For more than 40 years, I have encountered many, many folks who have been written off by the faith and political communities – thrown like a “baby out of the bathwater.” Later in life, they find themselves as grown adults but infants in the faith. My calling has been simply to suffer along with them in their renewed growth in Christ, a calling with all too little competition.
A Scripture verse has helped me through the years – John 7:24: Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment. These words are about learning to see people through the eyes of Christ, learning to hold people in sacrificial love. We make life-changing decisions in judging people by how they look and how they react under pressure. That has to stop if the Confessing Church is to reclaim its calling to be ambassadors for Christ in a world at war with each other over nothing of life-changing importance.
Would we do it again? It was a tough assignment for both Sue and me. The joys of service being the counterbalance, we find ourselves on the other side of this life immensely thankful to God for calling us, sustaining us, and teaching us the same lesson taught to the Apostle Paul: “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil 1:21).
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