We have a saying at the GO Seminary of the Americas: "The fingerprints of
the local church should be all over its neighborhoods. The community should
love the church so much that even if it disagrees with what the church
believes, it would grieve if it were gone."
We
want to plant and lead the kinds of churches in our communities that would
leave those respective communities feeling diminished by our absence because our redemptive presence was so strong. When Jesus walked into a village things changed for the better. When a church is established in a neighborhood things should be positively different not because of us but because of who we follow and how we follow him.
In our Incarnational Ministry and Strategies
II course students are challenged to develop ways of creatively engaging their
culture with the Gospel and ever-serving presence of the local church. We want to pour ourselves out for others and
invite them to be a part of us if they are so led.
Today
something completely unexpected happened.
Today we hit the streets with squeegees, sponges, cold bottles of water
and fliers. We thought we were just
washing windshields and reaching out to public transportation drivers that
serve our neighborhood. We later
discovered that we were also saving lives.
Public
cars labeled with the same letters follow the same routes and are a form of
public transportation here in the Dominican.
We have a circuit that runs directly through one of our neighborhoods. They pack their cars full of fares and their
passengers can get from one side of Santiago to the other and back by following
the connecting routes. These men drive
all day long in crazy traffic (they make a lot of the “crazy” themselves) and
it’s thankless, hot work. Because the “A”
car circuit goes through our neighborhood daily for up to 12 hours at a time,
these drivers are considered a part of our community. One of our students asked “What if we serve
them and let them know that we care for them and are grateful for their work? We could wash their windshields and give them
water.”
It
was a fantastic idea! Culturally, here
in the Dominican, when a windshield gets washed at an intersection or elsewhere
there is an expectation that the driver will pay for the service, EVEN if the
service was initially refused. They
almost always have to pay something. The
students wanted to turn the system upside down.
We’ll serve them at no cost AND we will give them a bottle of water as a
thank you for their service and invite them to the neighborhood church.
So
we prepped, got materials together, and set out to the “A” car route. It went like this: 1. Student hails the car
and begins immediately washing the windshield 2. While another student sticks
his head in the car insuring that the service is free and 3. Hands them a
bottle of water 4. While saying, “We’re able to clean your windshields for free
because Jesus cleaned up our lives for free.
Your windshield will get dirty again but Jesus can clean up your life
forever. If you want to know more about
it, come visit us one Sunday.” 5.” Here’s a flier with a scripture, address of
our building and times of service. Have
a great day!” The scripture is from John
4:13-14 and reads: “Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I
give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them
a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
We did one car after another… more than
80. But one was unique. The driver took the flier after we finished
and handed it back to a passenger as he drove off. Towards the end of the street the car stopped
and the passenger got out. He walked
back to the students. He asked them to
wash the windshield of his life. At
first they were confused. He broke down
and confessed, “You guys are here for a reason.
For me. I changed my mind. I changed it in the back of that public car
after I heard what you said and read this verse. I need that water. I’m at the end. I had made up my mind to murder my family and
kill myself today but now I won’t. I’m
not going to do it. I was going to do it
tonight but now I can’t do it. He went
on to tell of extreme financial difficulties, that he had not been able to
provide for his family, that he can’t find work to provide for his wife who is
pregnant with twins and the twins and singleton they already have
together. He was at the end of his rope,
desperate and ashamed, believing that they would all be better off if they were
just dead. All together there are 7 of
them.
The students prayed for him.
They took up a modest benevolent offering to get him through the night. They confirmed where he lived and got his contact information so that they could follow up with him the next day and
connect him to the church and pastoral staff.
Something as basic and ridiculous as a squeegee saved the
life of two adults and 5 children today.
We never knew weeks ago when this plan first was born that it would be
used in such a miraculous way. The church,
the People of God, went to the streets today and a difference was made. Lives were saved. It’s an encouragement to be sure but the
question follows, how many has the Church lost due to its preoccupation with
comfort and complacency? How many more
will die?
Today the fingerprints of the Church were on a squeegee that
taught me that pouring ourselves out in small and great ways is a matter of
life and death. We only discover this in
the act of serving. There is a real
battle going on that cannot be fought from a posture of comfort.
May the Church reject complacency in favor of a commitment to
grow in its service and its redemptive engagement of the culture and community
surrounding it.
Redeeming, Renewing, Restoring.
