It Works/ How It Works

About a year ago, I made a call for people to move into the community. I heard from some of them recently that they were pretty mad about it. The community doesn’t have the best reputation. Northside is a great place to live! But the idea is that since it is older, and tough in some places, it’s not the place to live. So some of the folks felt like I was asking them to live in a war-zone. (It is a war-zone, but not quite the way we think: the war is for lives and spirits, and is fought slowly and in hidden places.)

Anyway, a number of people have moved in—me and the boys, Maggie, Sara, Chelsea, Rebecca, Jason and Tawndee, Peter and Jackie, and John and Laura. Hope I did not forget anyone. They were added to those who have lived here for some time, and also to the 12^th Street Girls who have been incarnated here in one form or another for a few years.

John and Laura were living rent-free in a family member’s empty house. They were on the Southside, right where the American Gospel says you ought to be. But they felt like they could get a lot more ministry done if they lived here, in the 05. So they left a free 3BR house to pay rent on a one-bedroom apartment, in the complex where the refugees live. And they are so happy! Praise God!

I went with John just a few minutes ago to see his place. It is right in the middle of it all. But the cool thing was not they place. It’s what they’ve done with it. And I don’t mean Laura’s mad decorating skills. It’s bar-b-q’s with Mapigano, Laura taking Joyce and Rosy with her when she goes shopping, youth group kids coming over. And then John told me that a few days ago he and Laura went to a youth’s house and by the time they made it back home, he had talked to 23 people that he knew. All right here in the community. When he was talking to Russ, Peter pulled in. After he talked to Tina, I pulled up—the people he talked to are people that many of us have relationships with. So we’re doing the work, and winning people to Christ by our love for each other and for them.

We’ll be starting our “community dinners” soon, at my place. Our neighborhood is a lot different than 12^th Street, so we’ll have to adjust. One of the adjustments is that two of my older parishioners-- Lida Fugate and Thelma Glass—are going to be involved with us in the dinners. The awesome thing is, we have picked up 19 people in the last 3 months thru the work on 12^th Street—the work of hospitality, evangelism and most especially prayer. We are hoping that the same happens on Highland Park.