The Question...

A few years ago, a wise person repeated the question, "If your church disappeared from the neighborhood, would your neighbors notice?"  It pierced to the very depth of my soul and heart.

At the time, I reasoned that the call of the church I was working at was specifically to the college students at OSU and not really our "neighbors" that weren't college students.

Wrong answer.

Don't worry.  God quickly remedied where my soul and heart were in the midst of that.  True that Jacob's Porch was a community, a mission, a collection of ragamuffins wrestling with faith and mainly with a focus of campus mission, but He opened our eyes to all of our neighbors.  Those who smelled bad, those who were college students, those who "had it all together," and anything and everyone in between.

I have missed that so deeply.  And so that questions burns in my soul where I exist now.

But tonight?  I watched this church that I love so much as our neighborhood came alive for a moment.  To watch all of the conversations as people broke bread together, flew kites, ate an enormous amount of strawberries, danced, played with sidewalk chalk & bubbles, sat out on the front porch of the church as if they had been there their entire lives, watching people just being people.

All as it should be in the kingdom.  All of us needing each other in this family.  We need each other to hear the truth of the cross and empty tomb spoken into our lives.  So we may know the freedom and love.  So we may hear that we are called "Beloved."