A 700 Pound Gorilla?

Another great day today. It was an interesting day for us as a family. Our normal Sunday routine involves Robin cooking something on Sunday mornings for our meal with our friends in the downtown homeless community. This week? Not so much. No cooking in the Laney household today. Our great friend Clark offered to cook the entire main course. It was because of his generosity that we were able to alter our normal Sunday morning just a bit. And here’s why. You see, when we began this adventure almost a year ago, I’m not sure we ever went so far as to think we’d never be in a church again. We just knew at the time that God was steering us in a bit of a different direction. In His time. And He still most certainly is. But after a year of God selling His vision to people, His vision of getting out in the world and taking His love and His message to our friends in the park downtown, we have gained quite a few folks that are willing to show up with us on Sundays and help do the work that He first led us to do. So because of this, our family has been able to miss a Sunday here and there and have someone cover for us and it’s worked like a charm so far. One of the things we strived to do in the beginning was make this thing we do so easily duplicated, if we missed a Sunday or ever felt led in a different direction, someone or a group of someones could easily pick the ball up and carry on. It’s certainly not rocket science. Anyone can do it. Just takes a little initiative I suppose and the desire to fulfill what we believe to be God’s plan for us. So this morning? Since Clark offered to do the main meal and we had no cooking to do this morning, we did all the other prep work yesterday and finished up early this morning. Around 10:00 this morning we headed out to the downtown area. Now we normally leave our house around 11:30ish. Not this morning. Our destination? Church. Yep. We darkened the door of a church this morning.

We’ve been meeting with a group of folks on Tuesdays for a few months now. God’s plan for sure. Bible study…missional community…small group. Call it what you will, but we get together and talk about God stuff. Life application of God stuff. It’s a great group of people and a great time for discussion. It’s a pretty eclectic group of people. Drug addicts, recovering drug addicts, alcoholics, recovering alcoholics, some of our homeless friends from the shelter, a pastor and his family, and just about everything in between. The Vine. That’s the name of our Tuesday group. It’s definitely an interesting mix of individuals, couples, etc. But they are a community that comes from the church community we visited this morning. For the most part. And they’ve completely accepted us into the group which is very cool. So we decided to visit their church community this morning. As we were pulling up to the chapel where they meet, one of the kids said “Hey, there’s Peter”! Peter was a fellow who went to our church in Charlotte. Young, extremely talented, with a fresh look on life and the world, and driven by Gods’ vision. In fact, there were a bunch of Peters. And KBs. And Mats. And Roberts. You could have taken any one of them out of this church and dropped them into our church in Charlotte and they would have fit right in. The point is this was familiar to us. It was good. And because of the way God has blessed us lately with people willing to jump in and help out, we were able to join in with these guys and have a great morning of worship. So maybe we can do this once or twice a month. Who knows? We just had to get to a point where God would send enough folks to help out so we could keep this thing rolling and maybe find ourselves in community again.

EDIT ADDED 10-22-07

Disclaimer...What I meant to say and should have said...

As I read through this blog again this morning, something struck me. When I mentioned us being in a church and being in community "again", I guess what I meant to convey was it was just nice to be involved in more and different community. You see we definitely have a community. That community meets every Sunday at noon in the park. And that is definitely what I would call our primary community. Those we serve and those we serve with. Because there are people who give of their time and effort tirelessly and it is such an immense blessing to be in community with these great people. And they know who they are. I could certainly go through and name them all, but they know. And more importantly, He knows. The church we visited was simply an opportunity to fellowship a little more with folks we've been meeting with on Tuesdays. Our schedule allowed us the time to do it, so we did. The building is just that. A building. The community can meet anywhere. Our wonderfully devoted community just happens to meet without a building. In a park. So maybe in the future, we can do a little of both. If we can make it work, we surely will.

So I just wanted to say what I meant to say and what I should have said...

END OF EDIT :)

So we were able to go to church this morning and do our other gig with our friends downtown. What a great day. My aunt and uncle and a couple of cousins joined us from Iowa. The usual suspects were there. Serving. Being served. Ugu was back and again telling me how we were there in God’s image. We are now bringing music to add a little of God’s atmosphere to the corner. Something about music that just brings that corner to life for me. In fact a couple of guys were asking if they could rent our equipment for a night. I told them they could rent it for free every Sunday from noon to 2:00. More people from the county doing community service hours. And that is so cool to me. Most of these people that come jump right in and get at it. And most of them are younger kids. I also met a lady from Arkansas named Lorraine who had the most beautiful smile. Not homeless, just there for the opportunity. I talked to a lot of different people. Saw guys shaking in the wind because they didn’t have coats. Winter is coming. Right around the corner. People need winter gear. It’s heartbreaking to see someone who is just cold to the bone. Know that feeling? I’ve been pretty cold before, but I’ve always had a place to go warm up. Some of these guys are out in the elements all day and it breaks my heart to think some of them spend their nights out there also. It’s tough. I had a lengthy conversation with a young couple who need rent assistance. They stay in a weekly boarding room and have fallen behind. Needed help by Monday. Lots of help. Broke my heart to tell them I didn’t know how we could help them. I can certainly pray for them and will. May never know the outcome of that one. Angie and Bobby. That’s who I’ll be praying for, along with a host of others.

The gorilla? 700 pounds? Well, as I was talking to a fellow I’ve really grown drawn to, he mentioned this very thing. Said he had a gorilla on his back. Not a monkey, he said. A gorilla. 700 pounder. Alcoholism. I know that demon. And he wants it off his back. As I look around down there on Sundays, that has to be the overwhelming factor that gets most of these guys to this point. Whatever the addiction is, that would seem to be the most significant factor that contributes to these situations. Seems that way to me anyway. How in the world will these guys ever be able to conquer these demons? Many probably never will. Surely some of them can. By the grace of God. And that’s where we come in. We obviously can’t do anything to “help” most of these guys. But we can certainly be there to try to offer what we know. And what we know is God is waiting for them. With wide open arms. We simply have to be there to tell ‘em. Tell ‘em all about His amazing love …forgiveness…grace…restoration. It’s all there for the taking. We just have to be there to let ‘em know about it. And we will be there. Every Sunday. Noon. Till whenever. And if any of the guys want to “rent” our equipment for the night? Well….

I could go on and on with these weekly journals. I simply try and capture a moment in time for what it looked like from my perspective. That’s all. So much happens on a given Sunday. I could not possibly recount all the things that happen. The conversations that take place. The fellowship that is shared. To think that God took a chance on a family such as ours to be involved in a mission as great as this? Unbelievable. Another fellow, Menelik, was telling me how he walked from the Open Door Mission to meet with us today. That’s a good hours worth of walking. What a deal. What a community. And they are great people to be in community with. Some are a mess. Aren’t we all. I certainly am. Give me a mess any day. That’s where I believe some of God’s most amazing work takes place. Right in the middle of the mess. Yeah…give me the mess.

Peace and have a great and blessed week.

..."it matters to that one"... :)