Lives in Motion

I sat down with a friend from Liberia recently. When he arrived in NYC as a war refugee, we quickly recognized his sincere heart and his integrity when he entered our fellowship of house churches in the Bronx last Fall. Among other things, we were discussing the church that meets in his 4th floor apartment. As we talked I asked him if he thought people were growing. His response was enthusiastic. He said that now that his family has been experiencing worship and the Word together and have made their home into a meeting place for church, peace has come to his house. The family gets along better, the marriage is stronger, the kids are improving. He expressed that if it wasn't for house church, he suggested that things probably would not be so good in their house. I don't know if there are any other West African house churches meeting in the United States, but this one is the story of people being touched by the Spirit of Christ in their midst. This is new territory for most people including my African brother, so we're still experimenting with what works and doesn't work for that house church. But there certainly are victories to celebrate.

Yes, when you are on the cutting edge, you do sometimes get cut. You make strategic errors. You learn as you go. However, when you're on point, out on the edge, you also see sunsets and unworn trails, and sights that few have seen before. With all my training (and I mean this as a humble admission) as I entered church planting, I knew I'd be learning, but I never dreamed that I'd be learning so much. Let's thank God for new horizons, for lessons learned, for lives being transformed, and let's ask Him for more! I feel in my bones that this is only a hint of what is to come if we are faithful to the call to pray and to go.
~Luke 10:2~

In the midst of heroes

I am in the midst of heroes. I know a man in his twenties who leads one of our house churches. He has only been a Christian for a couple of years, but when he found out that his cousin was in his final weeks as a result of AIDS, he went every friday to his cousin's bedside for the last few weeks of his life. He watched in concealed horror at medical procedures being conducted. He held his hand. He listened, and stayed for hours when closer relatives who drop-in for minutes. Most importantly, he told him the Good News of Jesus and the hope of the grace of God. On his last visit with only days of life left in his cousin's body, the dying man confessed that he desired God's forgiveness, that he believed in Jesus, and wanted him to save him. As the clock ticked past the eleventh hour in this man's life, he turned his face towards Jesus. (Now, I know that some of you feel very strongly about baptism as I do also, but like the theif on the cross, baptism was not quite practical -- much less possible -- in this case. So I hope that you do not miss the beauty of this story.)

I'd like to be there. I hope that I can be in that corner of Heaven when their eyes meet. I'd like to watch as this disciple of Jesus looks across the throne room and sees the grateful glow in the face of his cousin who only knew Jesus for a few short days. I'd like to watch, and I know that it is Heaven, but I can't imagine it with dry eyes.

No one can tell me that new Christians must simply sit and our feet and absorb our great wisdom. It is pretty difficult to argue with the evidence of lives being transformed in such a way. God is Lord of the harvest, and if we will ask, seek, and knock in order to discover workers, we will find those who will lead us where we, ourselves, were afraid to go.