Acts 2:1-21
Build it and they will come. This is what the church has done since time memorial. Bible studies, programs, kids programs, programs for singles, well, you get the idea. Each and every one of us falls into the trap of creating something which will draw people to us and yet this is not Pentecost, or at least the example of the scripture.
Out into the streets, no planning, no committee work and everyone spoke the good news just with their own language. What if we were more like it? What if we blew out the doors to translate what would be good news to our neighbors? What would church look like then?
This has bee the blessing of COVID. Finding we can't come into our buildings we have pivoted and started the church outside the doors. We have hundreds of people who will watch this live-streamed service every week. We have started feeding our friends to go outside the church every month. Now we can come back to the church, but we shouldn't forget the gifts we have encountered while outside the doors.
Just this week I went over on Wednesday night to introduce myself to the pastor Ben Porter of Gateway Church, our neighbor here in Cape. He mentioned how he has seen us do good things for the community here, for our neighbors and I invited him to join in with us some Sunday afternoon. We are visible as the church to others for maybe the first time in a long time. I want to share some other examples of the church beyond the walls which are working for churches.
There is an Episcopal Church in Detroit which has bought back its neighborhood. They have bought apartments for low income, allowed fledgling businesses by community members to have shops in their church spaces which were unused, and have changed the worship service so you don't need a bulletin because many members cannot read. When asked how you get funding for this, the priest replies, don't worry, the money will come. It is because they are out beyond the doors. They took a neighborhood which was becoming run down and deserted and made it a community to be a part of. They revitalized it with affordable housing, belief in people's own businesses and opening up room for them to create. One woman is now licensing her iced tea for commercial production, it is this popular. This is the church outside the doors. Not creating and building programs people will come to, but working with the neighbors to find out what would be important to them and to start helping create the dream they wanted the neighborhood to be.
Thistle Farms in Nashville Tennessee works with women who have been arrested for prostitution over 250 times. They have a waiting list to get into their program house. They built it right on the street corner where the women turn tricks. They help get them clean, give them a place to stay, have developed a program for Johns, which is more than just getting the women off the street. Everything they have created for the women speaks of abundance. They come into a house with a new bed, new kitchen, beautiful furnishings, and are trusted to run the till at the cafe, make bath and body products for sale online and in the shop, they have a 75% success rate. They heard what the neighborhood needed for trust, for belief in women who have never been believed in and have been abused all their lives. This is the church outside the doors.
Chantel McKinney knew the neighborhood didn't come to the church, so the church came to the neighborhood it was planted in. She walked the neighborhood and talked with people. Got to know them and what they dreamed of for their neighborhood. This started a multicultural faith community which now worships in the Winston-Salem area and it is growing. All because one person decided to talk with the neighbors and listen. She has started Root, Thrive, Soar a consulting business which will help churches do this. Listen and respond to the needs of the neighbors. This is the church outside the doors.
I don't think Pentecost is a day we should sit comfy in our pew and believe everything has returned to normal.
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