I blacked out in the parking lot of the church. Moments before I blacked out, the angry people in the car yelled at me and told me I needed to call the police. I called the police to report the accident. As I was on the phone with the operator, I began to feel disoriented. Toward the end of the phone call the operator asked me for my number and I am pretty sure I unintentionally gave her ten random numbers--thinking I was giving her my number.
As I hung up the phone, I had a soft landing spot in the grass next to the car and fell there.
I woke up to a concerned wife, followed by concerned, compassionate people.
Many stopped to see if we were okay. Others offered a loving embrace.
By the time we left the church, we had been given lunch by someone who stopped to check on us, asked if we needed anything (to which we declined), drove to Publix, got us food--enough to which we could share it with the people we hit,--and delivered that food to us (they also followed us home to make sure the car was going to make it there).
I stopped feeling like I had just done something terrible and began to feel the reality of the situation--it was an accident.
This moment, to me, was just a blip on the radar of what the church could be. Do you see the potential that I see here? Christ followers more concerned about the people in need in the parking lot than their lunch plans. Imagine if we could apply what happend in my individual scenario to the church as a whole.
Could the church be the solution to poverty? What about health care? Could the church be the solution to teen-suicide? What about Human Trafficking?
I don't think this is a reach, because when we begin to look outside of the walls of the church and see the devastation in the world, I think our eyes become open to the fact that the new building might not be His biggest concern. What do you think? Are these issues the church should be dealing with?
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