Day 60
Collateral Damage
According to most sources, fishing kills more Porpoise every year than any other cause. The fishermen aren’t even fishing for Porpoise. The nets they use to catch other species seem to kill the Porpoise in the process. They’re just collateral damage, part of the price that’s paid in fishing to feed us. There’s collateral damage incurred during the spiritual journey as well.
Many years ago, my wife and I observed that churches are not for everyone. There are people who show up at churches that Christians wish would go away. Whether you claim to be a Christian or otherwise, some folks just don’t fit in the mainstream church today. They’re collateral damage. So, we began to pray about this observation.
During the next several weeks, this particular subject began to pop up in conversations with others. We didn’t prompt it. It just popped up. After the subject came up, we began to share with people that we were praying about this and invited them to join us. They agreed.
After about six weeks, one guy asked if he could come over to our home and pray about this specific issue with my wife and I. At the end of this evening, we decided that we would open up our home on Thursday evenings from 7-10PM for those who felt excluded from the church. We decided we would study the book of Luke together, pray and provide a safe place for people to come to explore a relationship with God.
Two years later, we completed the study of the book of Luke. We met every Thursday night. People would start arriving around 5:00 PM so we could enjoy dinner together. It wasn’t uncommon for my wife and I to crawl into bed around midnight. So much for the 7-10PM stuff. Attendance grew to almost fifty people for these weekly gatherings. At one point, we had to cut the group in half with some folks in my office (in a building behind our home) and the rest crammed into our living and dining rooms. Our daughter Liz was the designated babysitter for the people with small children. The kids played in our basement with Liz while their parents met upstairs. This initial group spawned two others.
Who were these people and where did they come from? The group included people whose ages ranged from seventeen to seventy. They heard about the gathering through word-of-mouth. There were people recovering from drug addiction, alcoholism, and sexual addiction. There were folks who had recently been released from jail and prison. Others were struggling with divorce, dysfunctional families, the loss of employment, and those confronted with serious health problems. Some were Christians and others were not. We celebrated births, birthdays, graduations, progress, blessings and marriages together. We mourned the divorces, exploding families, disintegrating relationships and deaths together. Everybody had two things in common: They felt they didn’t fit in at mainstream churches in the area and they were people desperate for God.
Yes, what we experienced during these meetings in our home, you would not typically see during a Sunday morning church service. Some people shrieked and shouted tearfully over the pain in their lives. Some people cussed. Loud! Others were really angry and let it be known in no uncertain terms. Almost all were worried, scared, wounded and uncertain. We had people attend with newly dressed gunshot wounds, some who had lost spouses or friends to a fatal illness or accident. We had to call 911 one night when a woman resting in a bedroom adjacent to our living room went into delirium tremens. The entrance of the ambulance crew didn’t seem to faze anyone. These people had already seen it all. They were people who knew what it was to become collateral damage in life.
What did we learn from this experience? One author puts it well when he writes:
“The embrace of the excluded is attained not by the widening of the boundaries and/or through cultural assimilation. But rather through the emergence of a new center, Jesus Christ, who is to be found among the diverse groups of the excluded. Theology takes place as Christians join Christ “outside the camp,” sharing in this exclusion.” [i] It all started with an observation and a simple prayer. God took it from there.
We provided a safe place where people were welcome. We meant it when we said, “come as you are.” We live in a world that adores the new and the unblemished. We have a God who adores those who have been wounded, the impoverished, the marginalized and the disillusioned. Those who have been soiled and tarnished by life. What God yearns for today are Christians who understand that there is more to God than mainstream, denominational Christianity has led them to believe. To find new and magnificent dimensions of the God of More, seek those who are considered collateral damage in this world. You will have to take a different path than you are accustomed to. It is a path that will require you to stoop down to embrace the souls of the wounded where they lay. God requires disciples today who are willing to get down and dirty. As one author wrote, “It is difficult for a Christian to walk through the mud without getting dirty.” [ii]
The primary cause of death for the Porpoise reminds us to thank God for the collaterally damaged. I find it interesting that the church, a man-made institution formed to feast with God, creates a byproduct of scraps that have fallen from this table, where His most cherished blessings reside. He changed our life through them. He can change yours too. It starts with an observation and a simple prayer. God will take it from there.
NOTES
[i] Rieger, Joerg Opting For The Margins – Postmodernity and Liberation in Christian Theology, Oxford University Press, NY, NY © 2003 by The American Academy of Religion p.56.
[ii] Schaeffer, Francis A. No Little People, Crossway Books – A Division of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL © Copyright 1974 by L’Abri Fellowship p. 77.
