Just Say No to the Triple Dog

Here's how it works: you do some close work with a person or a family. Then they're gone. Best case: they go because they have a new place to live, a better place.

The range of worst cases:
They just take off because they don't know anything else.
They find an easier touch.
You sat down with them and had to say, "You drink too much, and God can't honor that," or "clean this dump up," and they could not hear it.

The long and the short of it, sooner or later, the ones you work closest with leave. Sometimes they leave a knife in your back, other times it's just they're gone.

Whatever the reason, you start to worry about transience. Evangelism is hard work, time-consuming. And if justice is a part of that work, you're pouring into it. Next thing you know, it feels like it went down the drain.

There's an I-told-you-so crowd, but you tune them out.

There's the institutional voice of the denomination that looks for stability and the funds stability brings.

There's your own voice that wants to see the fruit. Heck, you want to taste the dang fruit.

You can see why it is so easy to look elsewhere, to ditch the poor and opt for the stable, even, and ESPECIALLY, if it means waving bye-bye to the street your church sits on.

But do you dare?