God Things - Act III

Act III of our play begins with Shari’s atypical appearance Thursday afternoon on the stage of our church as she returned from a medical test (usually she’d be at her workplace). It is she who greets the twenty-something year-old woman who enters the building looking for communications assistance because her vehicle is sputtering on the verge of an empty gas tank.

By phone the woman attempts to reach by a couple of family members, to her dismay connecting only with their voice mail. The second message she leaves is plaintive understatement: “Not having a very good day today. Talk to you later.”

The three of us end up seated in the office, forming something of a triangle of concern about whether she could make it back home to her three children. It’s not long before it’s obvious that the woman’s sojourn into our company is no happenstance, but rather a new expression of God’s gathering confidence in our capacity and desire to move beyond our walls and into the lives of people for whose needs, in the past, our attention to self would have precluded active concern.

As in the previous acts of this divine production, I will not sedate you with details of the hour-plus the three of us shared. Again what matters is the day’s rousing conclusion.

We respond to the woman’s need by offering a gift sufficient for gas to get her home and to her own resources. But before the small but useful financial transaction, comes a touching, enlightening, hopeful conversation about kids and faith and spiritual hunger. By the end of our conversation she commits herself and her kids to join us Sunday morning, telling us, “I don’t know what made me stop here. I thought about going to that other church next door, but something told me to drive in here.”

We tell her that her decision is a God thing. Shari happened to be there, allowing the young mom to meet her kids’ prospective Sunday school teacher, and giving witness to our congregation’s informal Sunday morning dress code. The woman's inability to reach her family members opened the door for our church’s participation in her life. And we still had available a copy of our latest church newsletter, an issue in which my column is about our efforts to reach people not currently connected with the church.... A God thing.

The woman drives away smiling, confident that she will make it home and encouraged that she and her kids, at least one of whom has been actively hounding her mom to get connected to a church, will be learning and worshiping this weekend.


So yet again God has opened gates that for so long our church has kept closed, even barricaded – gates into acts of service and provision for people in need; gates into conversations about how a relationship with Jesus changes your life and frees you to care about others. For the third time in seven days, God presented us an opportunity to demonstrate the legitimacy of the claims of those vision words our board discussed last week: meeting needs, healing wounds, and connecting people to Jesus. And for the third time in a week we accepted the offer.

Today’s encounter reaffirmed an important lesson for our and any other church wanting to escape the imprisonment of its dying ways: First meet people at their point of need, then talk faith and church.

• Remember Teresa, the woman with epilepsy, whose house needs organizational help? She was quite open and anxious to talk about faith, but we piqued her interest by engaging the wounds of her life.
• How about the three siblings whose mother’s funeral was the core of “God Things, Act II”? Some or all of them and their families now expect to join us for worship this weekend, but their interest in our community arose because one of our followers of Jesus joined them at a funeral home, stood with them at a grave side, and journeyed with them through the valley of the shadow of death.
• Finally, Thursday’s spiritual traveler drove onto our premises, likely well aware of her spiritual needs. But our willingness to add to the few fumes in her vehicle’s gas tank fueled the trust necessary to share her heart with us.

Meet needs. Heal wounds. THEN connect them with Jesus.

He did it that way, of course. Jesus instructed people to praise God only after giving them cause – via restored sight, healed limbs, or exorcised demons, for example. Can you think of a time when Jesus preached without also providing? He knew that meeting needs created credibility. He knew that helping people overcome their circumstances opened ears, hearts, and minds. He knew that tangible deliveries of God’s goodness produced optimum conditions for receipt of spiritual truth.

Meet needs. Heal wounds. Show concern. Establish trust. Practice what you preach. Open doors. Be the Jesus you claim. THEN offer a connection.

Three times in the last seven day that sequence has worked, to our exuberant delight; it a far cry from our previous mantra: “Wait for people to come. Hope they fit in. Feel bad when they don’t. Wait for the next one.” Three times God has said here’s a chance for you to show me you’re serious, and we have been.

As the woman drove away, my spirit considered crying out, “Enough already! We get it! Bless someone else for a while.” That craziness lasted only an instant, however, when I remembered we are always only a breath away from the wilderness. God, I cried, keep doing your thing.


Here ends the most blessed Express trilogy yet. Blessed, not because of its literary merit, theological prowess, or spiritual maturity, but because each piece testifies to hope and new life – witness of which not long ago I was not capable.

At the first of this year I was lost on a cynical, desperately pessimistic sea. My creativity was stymied. My vision was blocked. My heart had withered. My hope was gone. I was playing out a string and considering options for a second career. By ‘08's dawning, I had given up: on myself, my calling, and the congregation I served. Oh, I was still trying. I hadn’t stopped writing sermons, making hospital calls, or caring about our people. But I had stopped believing. More than once I confronted God, demanding an explanation for the two decades-plus I had wasted in a ministry that, to my broken perspective, was a mistake, or, more cruelly, a divine but mean-spirited practical joke on me.

Things have changed. Much to my surprise and praise, I have found new reason for my and our season. Sure, we will still doubt and wander through scary valleys. Further, I can’t imagine that the next seven days will hold a candle to those that just ended.

But that’s okay. For we have seen things, felt things, acted in response to things, and cried in praise to the one who provided those things...all those God things.


Pray with me:
God, for all your magnificent and undeserved productions of grace, we say thanks...and just know that we’re in line ready for the previews of your next show. In the name of Jesus, Amen.