Have you ever tried to scroll through 10 years of posts in a Facebook Group? Not for the faint of heart, especially when the internet apparently gate keeps that info and gives you the “aww snap error” when you get to about 2015. I wanted to refresh my mind on a few things from the beginning of our church launch days, but my memory will have to suffice for today until the interweb cooperates.

In the words of Sophia from The Golden Girls, “Picture it…western Oklahoma in the Spring of 2013.” Our little family had moved to the community in 2007 and had put down roots in a local Church. Randy was a deacon, served on the personnel committee, we sang in the choir, taught the College and Career class, and were there every time the doors were open. We were all in, but sometime about 2012, the winter of our discontent began. (Reality Bites quote for my beloved sister whose support has kept me from violence many a time)

Our pastor, when he was relatively new to our church, began preaching a series called Vision Quest. He invited us as a congregation to dream outside the box of how we could reach the unreached in our community. In our classes, we wrote ideas on the board of how we could use our facility not just on Sundays and Wednesdays but on other days of the week to serve the people of our town. We came up with so many great ideas like renovating a portion of the building to be a free coffee shop, opening a free laundry mat, starting an after school hangout, etc. For the first time since I was a youth and going on mission trips, I was excited about where our Christian outreach was going. I could see every idea we penned and all the faces we could reach with God’s love by being His earthly hands and feet. The energy was palpable and I thought we were really going to make some changes around there. What a foolish little zealot I was.

One day in our adult Vision Quest class, we were to whittle down our list of ideas and submit our final thoughts on how to reach our town. This stirred up a hearty discussion. I figured it would be about which idea was best and most applicable to our location and building, but the debate took an interesting turn when a few members spoke up and said that our church isn’t here to evangelize, it exists to disciple those who are already believers. Basically, it was not our job to open the doors wider, but to keep them narrow and then teach the few who make it in. I was gobsmacked, and secretly wishing God would Himself smack some compassion into a few heads.

It was soon revealed that there was a much greater group who agreed with the “You believe before you belong” mentality of the Church. The vision quest came and went along with all the radical and exciting ideas. I think in the end, they decided on a new renovated welcome center as the first step of change. That’s nice but didn’t do anything tangible for the burning embers which had been sparked in my heart for the hurting in our community. On top of that there began to be long meetings and conflict over the most asinine things such as whether or not removing the wooden pulpit to update it with a clear acrylic one was appropriate. I couldn’t believe these were the hot topics in the midst of a community of hurting and “lost” people. The laundry list of inward focused complaints kept growing while the list of ideas for reaching outwardly kept shrinking. 

The final straw for me was a story I wrote about in this blog early in the Edge launch days. My little book club had somewhat adopted these young girls of color who lived literally on the other side of the tracks in town. We gave them Christmas gifts, dresses for dances, food, school clothes, whatever we thought they needed. One sunday I invited them to come to church with me. When we picked them up, the youngest got in the car and had a dress on. I’d never seen her wear a dress before and it wasn’t a new one. It was missing a couple buttons and one part was held together with a safety pin while she hid a gaping hole in the side seam by covering it with her hand. It hit me that despite me telling her to “come just as you are” she knew enough from watching the culture that you should wear a dress if you’re going to church. Who was I trying to fool when I myself looked much different on Sunday morning than I did on a random Tuesday. People read your actions more than they do your words. I took my little friend to her class and when I went to pick her up, instead of a smile, she was clutching that dress together even tighter and looked miserable. I asked her how she liked it and she said, “I’m never coming back. Those girls made fun of me.”

I felt terrible for putting her through that. I told her she never had to go back to class and if she would come with me to ‘big church’ next week that she could wear her jeans and I would too. That was the last Sunday I wore ‘church clothes’ to church. People noticed. One Sunday a woman told me that the older ladies were talking about how Mrs. Jones is wearing jeans on Sunday morning now. It was meant to shame me, but instead it made me proud. There needed to be some change if it meant opening the doors for little ones, and big ones for that matter, to come unto Him. Little did I know just how much change was on the horizon for the Jones family.

The thing I want you to reflect on with me during this blog series centers around a post I saw on our old Edge group page. It read:

 “Great moves of God are usually preceded by simple acts of obedience.” 

Ha! Says someone who has never had to take that not so simple step. I always think of the Indiana Jones scene when he has to cross the invisible bridge and face the terror of putting one foot in front of the other, not knowing he won’t fall to his death. So goes walking with God at times. Recently, when we were explaining our love for the church we built, someone piped up and said, “YOU didn’t build this church, GOD did.” There is truth in that, but there is also a severe lack of perspective as well. Saying you have faith in God and stepping out in that faith are two very different things. My hope isn’t that we get any Glory for what God did in our time there, but my hope is that people won’t forget the sacrifice our family endured to make sure that church could exist today. I want people to know that great acts of God will always require great courage. You don’t just stumble in or Forest Gump your way into being a part of a miraculous display of God’s power and provision. We are doing one another a diservice if we blot out our acts as humans partnering with an Almighty God and take away the encouragement we can lend one another by sharing that when you step out on that invisible bridge, with shaking legs and sweaty palms, God will be there to catch you! What a great opportunity He affords those who have courage! And by God’s Grace, I will not let anyone forget that because there is a great need for courage today.

You want to forget my name? Fine. You want to erase my contributions from the history books? Fine. God’s history is in permanent ink and eternal, He and I know the truth and I can live and die with that. But you start to diminish the blood, sweat, and tears my husband and my kids spent to answer God’s call on our lives? I’m coming for you. I’ve always said I’m a bit of a Peter and I’ll swing the sword fighting for what’s right and let Jesus glue your ear back on later. This journey is a story of footprints in the sand; God’s, ours, and many many others who God also called. I won’t let their sacrifice be diminished either. They will be here either in name or spirit, even those who no longer call me a friend, because I saw them. I saw their courage, I saw their hard work, I saw their talents spilled out as a labor of love. Only those who have never given greatly of themselves say things like “YOU didn’t do it, GOD did.” I hope someday when people like that hear the calling, they have the courage to answer as well, maybe then they will know what an ignorant thing that is to say. 

I will always remember sitting in a pew, second row on the left was the Jones row, and the sun was reflecting light off the stained glass windows along the street side of the sanctuary. I knew just on the other side of that kaleidoscope of color was a sidewalk where people passed by every week as we sat in there worshiping God and singing “Come just as you are…” I distinctly recall the question whisping through my mind, “God, Why won’t they just come inside?” 

Well, ask God questions and God will give you answers– but sometimes they come after a long quiet winter.

Winter is here, but Spring is just around the corner. Until next time…