The Gospel in the Mud
Monday, October 08, 2007
Share:
|
Lendy and I were talking recently about a messy ministry situation. We talked about the ideal of the gospel as we read in Scripture but how muddy the gospel gets in real life situations. I somehow came up with the phrase, "The Gospel in the Mud."
Not long after this revelation (ha!), we went to the Nashville Inner City to serve the poor, encourage the servants in this non-glamorous ministry and be the love of Christ to all we encountered. We got to live, experience and learn what it means to carry the gospel into the mud--poverty, abuse, crime, brokenness, you name it! Of course, we have plenty of mud in our own lives but we are masters at covering it up. We obviously have something to learn from these muddy souls.
I've asked those who went to share a favorite memory from the trip. I hope somebody will tell the McDonald's domestic dispute story or the singing-on-the-bus-to-worship story. But there are many others...other stories and memories I never saw.
Please share...for your sake and the world's!
Not long after this revelation (ha!), we went to the Nashville Inner City to serve the poor, encourage the servants in this non-glamorous ministry and be the love of Christ to all we encountered. We got to live, experience and learn what it means to carry the gospel into the mud--poverty, abuse, crime, brokenness, you name it! Of course, we have plenty of mud in our own lives but we are masters at covering it up. We obviously have something to learn from these muddy souls.
I've asked those who went to share a favorite memory from the trip. I hope somebody will tell the McDonald's domestic dispute story or the singing-on-the-bus-to-worship story. But there are many others...other stories and memories I never saw.
Please share...for your sake and the world's!
Write a Comment
A light in a dark world. The emptyness felt when we leave a place such as the inner city of Nashville knowing that so much more could be done and wishing we had a lot more time. God opened up at least 18 hearts even more after that weekend than they were before they left.
Many memories from door-knocking, food and clothing distribution, the church service and a blessed bus ride on the way to church were taken away from that weekend. For myself, it was the countless conversation with the fellow "missionaries" from that weekend. Sitting on a cooler in the back of the bus because there was no where else to sit and diving into the deep feelings and thoughts we were having, some for the first time, inspires us to become better people and truly strive to live Jesus in our lives daily. Being unafraid to show that to others and stepping out of our comfort zone to bring Jesus to people who are desperately in search of Him.
Nothing can take away the experience that was there and hopefully a seed was planted from that weekend that is starting to grow in the hearts of those we encountered. We were blessed by hearing their stories, they were blessed by us stepping into their lives, even if for a few minutes.
God askes us now....."are you going to stop there?"
John McCammon
Where to begin....I have been blessed over and over from this trip...there is no time nor enough space to give you all that has blessed me from Nashville. So I will share with you just a couple of snippets. First, teaching Bible lessons on the corner of inner city Nashville was never ever a thought in my head. Those children knew the Bible or at least the stories. They all wanted to read and to just be close to you. They were awesome. Next, after worship riding the bus back when a 7 year-old looks at my Bible in my lap and says "Read that to me." WOW...if only we could get everyone to say that. After reading a couple of verses, she wrote out on a piece of paper "I love Jesus." and signed her name. Lastly, I was humbled by the worship of these people... they truely left it all at the alter, even though they had very little to give materially, they gave their hands, their feet, their voices to God. We give materially and think that is enough but forget to give ourselves to God.
Watching the people work and serve in that community blessed me more than words can describe. I am grateful for the opportunity to live this experience. God please let me never forget what I learned or saw....and to definetely not 'stop here'.
This is probably not my "favorite" memory, but rather one that will stay with me as a situation in which I should have (and could have!) done more.
I was with my group, doing the "door-knocking," and we went to the second story of one of the buildings and knocked on a door. Whoever it was had Vietnam-flavored stickers ("Vietnam Veteran," "Purple Heart Supporter," etc.). Took him awhile to get to the door, and when he answered, I saw he was in a wheelchair and had only one leg. We went through our little spiel about Inner City Ministry and invited him to "worship with us" the next morning, but he was very uninterested, shook his head and said "no" more than once. We gave him a flier anyway, smiled...and left.
It wasn't until later, sitting on the bus, that I realized: He lived on the second floor. There was no wheelchair ramp, at least not that I saw. 1) How did he get up there to begin with? Humiliating. And 2) How does he get down, if ever? He probably never gets farther than the concrete floor outside his apartment. Looking behind him, I could see it was small and dark, and it didn't smell very good.
This man had fought for our country and was now basically powerless, at least in the world's eyes. He probably never gets out, and if he does, it's not a pleasant process. We could have brought him food, we could have asked him if he needed anything, and most ouch-inducing, we could have and should have prayed for him. We didn't always ask people if they wanted us to pray for them, and we didn't ask this guy. Even if he'd said no...
Sorry to break up the kinda inspirational mood here, but...the work is far from finished, as your comments have already mentioned.
I am very glad I went on this trip and saw the things I saw and heard the things I heard. I hope I don't forget it, and that I will always be a generous Christian before I am a Republican or Democrat, or even an American.
"we have plenty of mud in our own lives but we are masters at covering it up." Amen brother!
Each of us have that debt we read of from Luke 7:36-50 in our Sunday morning class. My prayer is that we consider our debt to God, and we live as servants to Him exposing Jesus to everyone we meet.
"It wasn't until later, sitting on the bus...". I know exactly what you mean. I want to be able to look past the expectations of or already mentioned rejected replies that a person gives when I talk to them about God. We all have a debt, and we need not to consider who has the debt of 50 and who has the debt of 500. Jesus died for us all. Let's strive for humility and being a slave to our master, almighty God.
matthew kooshad
For me, the moment that impacted me the most on the trip was after church on sunday afternoon.
We were riding with Stacy and all the children we brought to church with us from the neighborhood back on the bus. Once we got on the road, Stacy asked us to lead in some singing.
Our worship songs started off kind of mellow, but eventually, they grew until everyone on the bus was singing, and clapping, and grinning from ear to ear. And when we started to drop the kids off in the neighborhood, their tune didn't change. They kept on singing and shouting with joy, not caring who of their friends or family saw them.
I realized that when we strip away all the attractiveness and glamour of worship, we really get down to the heart of it. And that is when we start to feel God's presense and begin to change.
I remember looking around at the kids on the bus, and thinking, "These kids have very little. Yet they are singing their lungs out and praising God for everything they have."
This was real humbling, because I know I am guilty of this, but sometimes we take for granted everything we have, everything that we have been blessed with.
It could be due to the fact that I love kids, and I love seeing them praise God, but this was definately the most impacting moment for me from the trip.
I'd like to see a Prayer and Praise session when we have worship like this. Like those kids, not caring who sees them, just praising God with everything they had.
-Nick Broadway
These are some powerful memories. Thanks everyone for sharing.
I am always blessed to see the growth in the students who have accepted the challenge to go to Nashville. Surely we do plant seeds in the inner city, but I some how think that just as many kingdom seeds are planted when we get out of our clean white society and wash the feet of the unlovable and some of them have six inch toenails!!
So, my fondest memory is the discussion on the back of the bus with two graduate students as they began to process what they had seen in under 3 hours in the inner city.
We should pay the Inner City Church of Christ for firing up the buses and taking us in there. I only hope that we will seek the ministry and the power of the Spirit to do it; as well as the proding of the community, both in this ministry and the Inner City Church to keep the inner city mission alive. It is easy to let it go and drift back into social and economic comfort.
LB
It was my first time observing how God worked through my life and their lives. There is no comfort in serving people, explaining to those who want to hear and enlightening those who want to know.
But, I deeply feel it was the trip that touches my life. There is no such relationship anywhere in the world that is so closely connecting people who have the same love for God. We all come from different places in the world, yet I feel safe to be here with you, no matter the trip to inner city Nashville or any other places in the future.
Collapse Comments | Post a Comment