God is good! He knew we'd be walking the city blocks of Baltimore today and sent a cold front through last night. Well, cold front might not be the correct word, but the humidity and temperature dropped to a comfortable level for walking.
Instead of putting door hangers on door knobs, we passed out little packs of mustard seeds with the church's website on them. The idea is to capture people's attention and make them curious about the church that is coming. Altogether our team handed out nearly 750 packets. Since the target group is the creative/artsy group in the city, the church planting team is made up of mostly creative/artsy people. People like Cameron who is a violin major; Maria, a sculptor; John an artist, and our guide Steve, a student at the Peabody Institute majoring in classical guitar. We got a peek at the first library in Baltimore which is housed at Peabody and is gi-normous! (I feel so cultural!) Earlier in the day my oldest daughter fell down the steps and scraped her knee, so Steve took my team to his apartment to clean it up and get a bandaid. He lives at what used to be the Stafford Hotel....Francis Scott Key stayed there once upon a time.
Instead of putting door hangers on door knobs, we passed out little packs of mustard seeds with the church's website on them. The idea is to capture people's attention and make them curious about the church that is coming. Altogether our team handed out nearly 750 packets. Since the target group is the creative/artsy group in the city, the church planting team is made up of mostly creative/artsy people. People like Cameron who is a violin major; Maria, a sculptor; John an artist, and our guide Steve, a student at the Peabody Institute majoring in classical guitar. We got a peek at the first library in Baltimore which is housed at Peabody and is gi-normous! (I feel so cultural!) Earlier in the day my oldest daughter fell down the steps and scraped her knee, so Steve took my team to his apartment to clean it up and get a bandaid. He lives at what used to be the Stafford Hotel....Francis Scott Key stayed there once upon a time.
All our teams met up for lunch in a local park. A couple of homeless people asked us for food, so we invited them to lunch. About four more came from nowhere so we shared with them too. After lunch we went to another nearby park where Cameron has a ministry to the homeless. We went there to pass out ice cream and converse with the people there. Not that many people were there as some actually have jobs during the day, some go to the various missions to eat, and some go to the library to get cool. One man told us about his life and said, "This isn't a bad existence." I wonder what he's been through to consider the homeless life as not being a "bad existence".
I really admire Cameron. He's a highly gifted young man, who is investing his life in the lives of these homeless people. He says that many charitable folks come by the park and give food and other items, and between the organized missons and groups bringing food the homeless should never be hungery. However, very few people actually take the time to hang out with and get to know them and share their lives. Cameron goes to this park every Wednesday to grill hot dogs and invest himself. I wonder, am I really willing to go that far? Sure, it was cool to offer ice cream and cold water to these "residents". I can go home and feel good about myself. But to go back week after week after week and really get to know each person on a first name basis, to actually know their history, to know the good, bad, and ugly and still be Christ's conduit of love to them consistently, that's where the "talk" meets the "walk". It gives me much to ponder on.
I really admire Cameron. He's a highly gifted young man, who is investing his life in the lives of these homeless people. He says that many charitable folks come by the park and give food and other items, and between the organized missons and groups bringing food the homeless should never be hungery. However, very few people actually take the time to hang out with and get to know them and share their lives. Cameron goes to this park every Wednesday to grill hot dogs and invest himself. I wonder, am I really willing to go that far? Sure, it was cool to offer ice cream and cold water to these "residents". I can go home and feel good about myself. But to go back week after week after week and really get to know each person on a first name basis, to actually know their history, to know the good, bad, and ugly and still be Christ's conduit of love to them consistently, that's where the "talk" meets the "walk". It gives me much to ponder on.
1 comment:
I do think that you invest yourself in the ministry Drewe Llyn, it just isn't necessarily to the homeless in Baltimore on a permanent basis. And I bet you have a church full of people in MS that would definitely agree. :)
Glad that the Lord is blessing you all!
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