Living In A Paralell Universe

A while back I met with a couple of pastor friends from other downtown area churches. We meet regularly to talk and pray. One of them asked me “So, how do the elderly like having the homeless in their church service”?“Actually they don’t mind a bit,” I answered. “Everyone knows that the only reason our denomination is willing to fund us and keep our ministry going is because of our work with the poor.” “So, in an odd twist” he laughingly answered, “those little old ladies have to be thankful that homeless alcoholics and addicts have saved their church?!”

“Well, now that you put it that way—you’re right.” I mused. “I guess that would really only happen in some kind of odd parallel universe.” We both laughed.

I got to thinking about that funny insight and suddenly decided that I must be living in a parallel universe where the normal rules of social life no longer apply. Our board had come to the conclusion in December that we couldn’t financially survive past March 31. We made plans to begin the process of closing the church and dispersing come April of this year. Early talks with denominational leaders had them advising us to close. So, I submitted a plan for closure to them in early February. BUT a homeless person who loves our church and it’s ministry gave us $10,000 to keep going. Only in a parallel universe would the financial answers to a church’s crisis come from a homeless person. As a result, we could go to June. In March, with Superintendent Mark Novak’s help the denomination decided to help fund us instead. It was mostly due to our work with the poor and our signs of church growth. What church board meeting would decide that it’s answer to financial crisis and numerical decline would be to invite in homeless alcoholics and addicts? Not in our universe!

We cleaned out the church in late May and dumped 60 years worth of accumulated stuff, totaling 2-1/2 tons! I heard some of the many homeless people helping us comment, “Why can’t they clean up after themselves? Why do these church people have to be so messy?” I thought that was another parallel universe moment!

I’m finding new financial aid and having the best evangelism moments I’ve had in years, inviting others to our church by singing in the wine bar across the street. The Wine Bar helping our church grow. Mmmmm.

I recently met with a group of agency leaders who do non-profit work among the poor. I attend a lot of these kinds of meetings since I’m on the Leadership Team of the Homeless Coalition.One of the ladies on the board with me is an extremely liberal democrat-type who supports the aggressive antiwar, pro-marijuana work of the Peace and Justice Action League. She also has connections with the gay community and is very proud of her liberal position. She’s still stunned that she is actually friends with a conservative pastor of an Evangelical Church. She insists on calling me Pastor Rob rather than just Rob, because she likes to blow her friends and family away with the knowledge that we’re friends who work well together. Just to be shocking with them, she will begin a sentence with “Pastor Rob says - “.

I had been invited to this symposium because she highly recommended me. I listened while she told the other members about her recent experiences. “You know how the underprivileged clients come in to our offices very skeptical and cynical of the help we social workers offer?” she began as the group affirmed. “Well all I have to do is ask them if they’ve been to First Covenant Church and when they say ‘yes’, I tell them that I’m friends with Pastor Rob and immediately all of their guard drops and they trust me.” she laughed. It is in a parallel universe where a liberal democrat social worker has to name drop a conservative Christian to get in good graces with the poor. It must be in that same universe that the Christian and the social worker are genuine friends.

Peter addressed his first epistle to Christians who are “Strangers scattered throughout the world”. He meant foreigners, aliens, sojourners, who don’t really belong here but are only temporary visitors whose home is somewhere else. In the book of Hebrews chapter 11 the writer says this of Abraham; “By faith he made his home in the promised land, like a stranger in a foreign country; . . . . For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.. . . And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. . . .they were longing for a better country--a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.” I suppose if we belong to another reality, a heavenly realm, if our true dwelling is in God’s house, then many of the rules and expectations of how the world actually works come from a parallel universe—a heavenly one. Living in a parallel universe should be the norm for all Christians. But it’s still hard to get used to.

The Actual Mission

Many years ago I was in a church that jumped on the band wagon of having a “mission statement”. It was the latest rage coming from the corporate world so churches were following suit. I guess we had forgotten why we existed and a cleverly assembled mission statement was the perfect solution.

      After countless weeks and months of development we put together a pithy two sentence statement that was then put on posters and brochures and promptly forgotten by most. The average person in our large church couldn’t have recited it or identified it from numerous other sayings. I noticed that we put the bulk of our emphasis, time, money and staff hiring on the last three words . . . “beginning with seekers.” That meant outreach events, evangelism strategies, and counting conversions were the dominant forces behind everything we did, That’s where the money got spent, the staff got hired and all purposes ended. That wasn’t morally wrong, it was just lopsided and out of balance with the Bible.

      Years later, after serving in several other churches and sitting through thousands of hours of board meetings, strategy sessions, team planning meetings, conferences, and training seminars, I came to the conclusion that the real, unspoken, and underlying mission statement of most of the churches I experienced was .  . . .  “We exist to get more people to come here, so that we could exist”.

     I once wondered out loud “If our church ceased to exist, who outside of our church would care?” In other words, it seemed we were totally self-serving. We existed only for those to whom we could gain a benefit if they stayed among us. But, If we disbanded, almost all of these people would simply be absorbed into one of the numerous other churches doing pretty much the same thing and no one would even notice the absence after a year or so. Only those who came and joined had any benefit from our existence. It felt rather - Well,- selfish.

     Last week when Gonzaga Campus Kitchen held it’s weekly meal for the poor in our gym, their leader, Emily came to me with tears in her eyes because she saw the For Sale signs on the building. Another woman who has worked for Spokane Neighborhood Action Program (SNAP) for many years, confided in me that a bunch of the agency people had taken bets a long time ago about how long I’d last. “You’ve made it more than twice as long as anyone thought” she told me. They’ve watched a lot of Christians come and go in this work. She used to be a Lutheran pastor’s wife for many years and thought the church would toss me out or I’d give up long before we got this far.

     Numerous homeless people have quietly come up to me almost in a state of panic and fear to ask “how long before this all goes away?” When the homeless saw the for sale signs, their sorrow ran deep, but they are so used to disappointment that they’re first reaction was to use their words and spend their time trying to console me. Which I thought was really touching. This is their place of hope and safety and they’re afraid it will disappear—even though only a small percentage have ever come to a church service, this is their home. “Like sanctuary” are the words most often used. They get dignity, respect and safety here.

     A lady from another non-profit told me at our last city-wide homeless coalition meeting,  she wanted to look up my number to call me but couldn’t remember the name of the church.  Sticking her head out of her office at the shelter she works in, she called out “What’s the name of that church where  . . . . “, “FIRST COVENANT” came the chorus of replies from the poor gathered there. They know us.

     Two weeks ago on a Sunday afternoon as I was talking with a homeless drunk, I couldn’t figure out why he was mad at me. Finally through his slurred words he blurted out, “Because everybody likes you! No mater where I go from one end of town to the other, everyone here on the streets talks about you and how great you guys are and how much they like coming here.” Why would this anger him? In the end it came out that he didn’t think any of those people deserved it. I found that ironic. None of us do, but love shines through anyway. That’s the Mission  of the church — GRACE!

     God knows what will come next. He loves the poor so we keep going. He has answers for our future, as a collective and as individuals. We   plan on holding on in faith until he leads us to what is next. But now I know what it feels like to be in a church were there are way more people outside of our doors who care about our existence than there are inside. It feels good.

Over looking my old town of Dublin California