Sometimes I Write

“Knowing you, we are sure that you will be sharing the Gospel as the opportunities are made available. But the main focus of your work does not appear to be sharing the Good News.”

There you have it…part of the cause of my anger this week. One of our supporters sent us an email to let us know they would not be supporting us in 2007. They had three reasons…this being the third. They have supported us all year…they have known us since before we were married, so we’re not strangers….they have never visited us to experience our work firsthand. This was an unfair assessment and lacked the facts about what we do, what we’re about, and definitely who we are. I’m not even going to mention the first two reasons but trust me when I say I disagree with those reasons as well. This one put me over the edge. I was angry! As Michael would say, “Anger is always a secondary emotion”. (Don’t tell him I’m quoting him – it will only go to his head!;)) The primary emotion was pain…I was hurt. A song I learned as a child popped into my head, “Angry words, oh let them never from the tongue unbridled slip…” So I took a little break from this for a few days.

So what does that mean? If sharing the Good News (and I thought that WAS the Gospel) isn’t the main focus of our work, then what is? EVERYTHING we do leads to that focus. The kids we work with aren’t open to hearing the gospel without first having a relationship with us. Does this mean this supporter thinks we should be standing on the street corner with our huge Bible under our arm, yelling at the kids about how lost they are and they need to come to Jesus? I’d like to give THAT little talk in a few churches I know. ~deep breath Niki~

I have to say that I’m very proud of Benny and his response to the email. He was polite and his wording was awesome. He got our responses to each of the reasons laid out as well as inviting them to reconsider their decision. In regards to this “reason”, he reminded them that a lot of the kids we know on the streets RUN from Christianity. In many cases there has been some sort of abuse (physical and/or sexual) in their lives by family members or friends who were “Christians”. Without building trust through a relationship with them, there is no chance of them listening to anything about Jesus. At the same time, they know from the start that we are ministers. This is not covert Christianity friends…it’s meeting them where they are, loving them through their circumstances, and through that relationship inviting them into a relationship with Jesus Christ. Our end goal isn’t to get homeless people off the streets…our end goal is to introduce them to Jesus and give them HOPE for the future. There is such a thing as a homeless Christian…I know some. Sharing the Gospel with someone who has been abused by Christians doesn’t look the same as sharing it with your neighbor who has been thinking about getting back into church after a hiatus from it since childhood. You have to have two different plans for those situations. Paul put it well when he spoke about being all things to all people so that some may be won to Christ. There’s more, but I’ll stop now.

I blogged that I was too angry to blog on Monday. On Tuesday we were blessed with a letter from another one of our supporters. This supporter thanked us for being who we are and doing what we do. They said they are pumped about our new ministry plans and they look forward to visiting us to experience it for themselves. It was so needed and much appreciated. God is awesome to work HIS way in HIS timing to bless HIS children. YEAH GOD!

And speaking of our new ministry plans…check out our new website at www.sevensonline.org I’ll blog more about that soon, but the scoop is on the website.