[Church and Discipleship] Faith in Action (9/13)

By Louie Rudin

Recently, there just seemed to be this “urging” inside of Tom to get to know the folks living right there in his neighborhood. He mentioned this to Tony, who suggested that Tom might simply try looking for ways to serve them. Months passed and it seemed that all the interactions that Tom had had with his neighbors were superficial at best, but they had gotten to know many of them by name. So they began to pray for them all by name everyday that God would be speaking to them and calling them and that they would hear Him. They were all pleasantly surprised when Cindy invited one of their neighbors to their home for an informal dessert. They have been friends with this lady ever since Tom fixed her lawn mower handle last summer. Sarah (the neighbor lady) was thrilled to know that someone cared enough about her to invite her to their home. They had a great time chatting about life in general and Tom and Cindy were quite surprised when Sarah asked them if they went to church. Apparently Sarah had “noticed” that they left the house each Sunday around the same time and that was the logical explanation in Sarah’s mind. They spoke briefly about EPIC and Tom was just about to invite Sarah to join them the next week when Sarah interrupted him and said that she had started attending a similar church after her husband’s death and when several months had passed she still knew no one at the church so she stopped attending. No one ever contacted her from the church but she did get a nice card eight months later for her birthday, and even though the message and names were all type-written, she thought it was a nice gesture and that apparently someone had added her “guest” information (that she wrote on a card the first time she was there) to some database that “remembers” peoples’ birthdays. It was very apparent that she was not interested in trying that again, at least not any time soon. They had a nice time getting to know each other and decided that they should do this on a somewhat regular basis, so they met each Tuesday evening for several weeks for some dessert and coffee. One week Cindy decided to ask Sarah over for dinner since it seemed silly to just have dessert together. The meal and conversation was so uplifting to Sarah that she suggested that they do it again next week, only this time at her house. When Tom and Cindy arrived, they were surprised to discover that Sarah had invited one of her friends from the quilting club she belongs to. It turned out thatNancyonly lives about 5 blocks away.Nancywas a bit older than Sarah and was quick to mention that she and her husband had some issues with “the organized church” which led to some very interesting and spirited discussions. She was very surprised to meet people who actually read the bible and soon discovered that there were some great “stories” in there. They all continued to meet each Tuesday for dinner and one week after a lively discussion about “loving your neighbor” Nancy announced that her next door neighbors, a young couple with a small child, were really struggling to make ends meet and now their car has broken down and maybe they should pray for them. Tom and Cindy (and even Sarah) were quite surprised at this suggestion coming fromNancy, but after their prayer time together Tom suggested toNancythat she might offer his help to these folks to look at their car.Nancydidn’t waste any time and got on the phone immediately withChad, her young neighbor. Within minutes Tom found himself under the hood ofChad’s car. It was apparent that the car needed a new battery.Chadnodded in agreement and said that it would have to wait a while until the next payday. He was riding to work with a co-worker and chores like shopping were difficult without a car but they were getting by. Tom went home immediately and told Cindy what he was thinking. The auto parts store was still open for another 20 minutes, he had just enough time. Within 30 minutes Tom was back atChad’s house with the new battery.Chadand Connie were stunned. “Why would you do this for us, you don’t even know us?” “Well, I do now” Tom stated in his typical matter-of-fact tone. Ten minutes later the car was up and running and the young couple both had tears in their eyes.Chadwas insistent of course that he would repay Tom as soon as he could and Tom of course told him not to worry about it, “that’s what neighbors are for”.

It’s been six months since Tom metChadand Connie and since it’s more difficult for them to get a baby sitter the group began meeting at their house for dinner. Everyone brings something to eat and no one ever leaves hungry. And sinceChadand Connie have both decided to follow Jesus, it has provided some extremely lively discussions about church and faith and making disciples, especially withNancy’s input! They’ve all attended EPIC at one time or another now (althoughNancyisn’t such a great fan of that “loud rock music”) but mostly enjoy their time together back in the neighborhood. In fact, they’re even talking about meeting a couple times during the week since they frequently run out of time for their discussions. But the most fun times of all are when Tony,Tom,Chadand RJ (Tony’s co-worker) meet together for breakfast on Saturday mornings. Oh, and the latest exciting news is that the co-worker that Chad has been riding to work with has come to dinner with his girl friend on Tuesdays for the past three weeks in a row now.

OK so this is a fictional story that came from my imagination. But even though the characters are all fictional they resemble real people not far from us who have real needs and who might be really curious who Jesus is. Just imagine if the church actually went to the community instead of the other way around. Do you see the difference? The proximity of the community should last longer than one or two hours a week. We already live with people. They are called “neighbors”.