a few years ago i was at a leadership conference and heard erwin mcmanus speak. i was disappointed when i looked at the program that afternoon b/c i had really attended to get all the knowledge i could out of andy stanley and louie giglio. so i was not expecting much when erwin got up and spoke on the barbarian way. well, let's just say i was way off. erwin stood up to speak and preached the most amazing sermon i have ever heard. maybe it was the time in which it was presented (the spring of 2003), maybe it was where i was in life (two months away from marriage), maybe it was the spirit of God that invaded that space. but his sermon impacted me more than any other. he has written a book expanding on the ideas he presented in that talk, but unfortunately he is a much better speaker than man of the page.

the next day he lead a break-out session which was packed to overflowing. he said he could deliver another talk or do a kind of Q&A with the attendees. i would have loved another talk, but the Q&A won, and a microphone was passed around the 200 individuals who asked him a variety of questions. in that break out he shared with us how he had started out his minstry connecting with the poor. and he had been attending this church with this really long name, something like the southern baptist church of eastern los angeles. the congregation was mostly white middle class. and one day the elders approached him and asked him to become the head pastor. (i am sure there are extensive details to how this all happened, but i don't remember them.) well, MOSAIC, as it is now called, is a multicultural community that has a strong focus on the arts.

i gathered up the courage to ask a question, and when the microphone was passed to me i asked: How did you make the switch from a largely white, middle-class congregation to a multicultural gathering of people from all nationalities and backgrounds? you see, at the time jason was heading up this multicultural worship service for young adults all around atlanta. erwin's answer, which i found extremely unhelpful at the time was this:

become friends with people who are different than you.

but in the past two days, that one statement has been driving through my heart and mind. so often i seek out and befriend people who are just like me; young, married, trendy, white... even when i was in college and made friends with people of different races, they were still studying the same major, still shared similar interests. am i really being intentional to include people who are of a different mold? and what causes this isolation? do i feel that i have nothing to bring to the table? might this single fear be the force behind my exclusion of people of all backgrounds?

I have no gifts to bring,
to lay before the King.
Shall I play for Him?

Then He smiled at me--
me and my drum.

Little Drummer Boy


Intentionality is the step that will bridge all the divides between the church and the people they are trying to reach. The girl serving you coffee, the teenager on the street, the old man at the grocery store, the prostitute calling out, the man rummaging through the dumpster. How are these people any different than you or me? They are human. But maybe their life didn't offer them as many choices. Maybe they were born into a situation that was already desparate and broken. Maybe they didn't have the luxury to realize that they are hurting, b/c everything that surrounded them screamed that fact everyday.

How many do I pass on my way to work?

I need to stop being the choosy, exclusive Christian that attends a Bible study full of believers, and puts on the "everything's okay" mask on my way out the door. I'm sick of living the civilized Christian life. Because Jesus died for more than that.

posted by Kelly @ 1:59:00 PM