Do you know a story like this? 1 November, 2007
Posted by Zack in Missouri.12 comments
I can no longer keep track of how many white, middle class or affluent Christians I’ve met who have moved to poverty-stricken, crime-ridden city blocks as part of locally organized attempts to redeem neighborhoods. If you are doing that, or know some folks who are, can you please email me and tell me about it? I would love to start visiting some of these communities and getting permission to write about them.
Email me at: info@RevolutionInJesusland.com
Whatever your suspicions are toward these folks, you have to admit that this is a fascinating phenomenon. They are going against every single instinct that is bred into us white yuppies from day one. I’m happy to say that my parents were people who resisted those instincts—but I still got it from everywhere else: media, friends & school, neighbors, etc… In other words, this stuff couldn’t be piled higher on top us us. If you’re one of us, you know what I’m talking about. Lock that door. Take the highway instead of Broadway. Don’t stop at THAT gas station, go a little further on. Yet these people are not only getting out of their cars in the roughest of neighborhoods, but are moving into former crack houses for Christ.
I grew up thinking that church was another institution that reinforced those instincts. And I’m sure it is in general. But now, some number of churches are preaching an alternate set of instincts—instincts based on the story of Jesus, a guy who was attracted to—not repulsed by—people and places stuck in dire straights.
What prompted this post is that I just got an email telling me about yet another community like this in a very small Midwestern city. It’s one of those small (50K people) towns that is the “Big City” for fifty miles in any direction. (Overwhelmingly Republican, by the way.) Doing some Googling, I found some blogs by people living in the community. FASCINATING, HEART WRENCHING STUFF! But I’m going to have to leave you in suspense until they give me permission to link to them. They are just so personal, and I don’t think they ever imagined anyone but their close friends would be reading them.
I also hesitate to link to them because the language they use is just soooo different from anything that people outside of the church is used to. I almost feel like it would have to be translated. I remember what that language looked like to me just a year ago. I remember thinking, “These people are insane.” But then I met them and found that they are actually FRIGHTENINGLY sane—like, *miraculously* well-adjusted.
And when I learned the actual, practical, operational meanings of the phrases they use—I saw that most are, in practice, near equivalents of phrases that secular folks use too. One simple example is when they say “God told me to…”. Yes, they do believe that God has a desire that they may be able to feel. But they realize they might be misinterpreting or mis-attributing those feelings to God, and most aren’t thinking of God as a person up there who has nothing better to do than whisper into their ears.
In other words, “God told me to…” may mean something as “normal” (from a secular point of view) as reading a passage of the Bible and having it shed new light on a decision you’re trying to make.
Anyways, know some Christian (or non-Christian for that matter) yuppies who are moving into an economically devastated neighborhood? Please connect me to them: info@RevolutionInJesusland.com
