Living Dangerously

[Editor’s Note: The story you are about to read is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.]

For the last several years I’ve been focusing most of my time and attention in the inner city neighborhood I live in. I’ve also been pretty direct about working with people that don’t darken the doors of a church building. To be clear, there are plenty of hard-working, decent people where I live. However, there is also a fair number of people with lives that are a mess. The homeless, the drug-addict, the sex-addict, the attention-addict. The list goes on. These are the people Jesus would hang out with. But they are also not the safest people in the world to minister to.

And for the last several years, I’ve also been fairly forward about calling people to live their lives down here with us. Coming into the neighborhood, dropping the Gospel, and then leaving wasn’t going to work. Come, be a part of the neighborhood. Learn how to interact with people who have no interest in your church. Come share the Gospel here. Come make disciples here. Come live here. Give your lives.

This week we had our first real brush with danger. We probably should have expected it but things like this, however, when it came it came unexpectedly.

My wife and her friend Jamie have been meeting for the past couple of months as a two and three. They could meet in our kitchen or at the Panera across town. But Christy and Jamie have chosen to meet at the McDonald’s because that’s where people in our neighborhood gather. This night went much like any other. As they left, they were approached by a man walking towards the door they were exiting. This man walked straight up to Jamie, punched her right above her right eye knocking her down to the ground, and kept right on walking. As if this situation wasn’t bad enough, Jamie was 9 months pregnant. The assaulter has not been found.

Now, for the most part, this situation has worked out as best as it could have. Jamie, aside from some bruising is physically okay. I say she was nine months pregnant because yesterday she gave birth to a very healthy baby boy. But I would be lying if I didn’t say that it didn’t rattle all of us. It rattled Jamie. It rattled her husband Mark who had to face the helplessness of not being there to defend his wife. It rattled Christy, who had to witness this event. It rattled me. It rattled our church.

And for me, at least right now, the thing that is most clear about this situation is that I’ve been the one encouraging my house church to embark on this kind of dangerous mission. Christy and Jamie wouldn’t have been at that McDonald’s on a weeknight in a somewhat dangerous neighborhood if I hadn’t been calling people to embody the Gospel here. So in some weird sense, I feel somewhat responsible for this happening. Could I have anticipated it this week? No. Could I have stopped it? No. But have I been asking people to do something dangerous? Yes.

And all of this has made one thing very clear: Jesus did not call people to do safe things. Of the twelve apostles that existed on the day of Pentecost, only one of them (John) didn’t die from persecution. And even then Domitian the Roman Emperor tried to boil him oil. Countless others have been lost over the course of the church history as they’ve tried to bring the Gospel to people who didn’t have it. In other places in the world, becoming a follower of Jesus is a death sentence. Its only in the West we are fairly inexperienced at loosing anything for our faith.

It’s important to be very clear: What we do is not safe. I’m not calling people to do something that has no risk. In fact, what I’m calling people to do is something dangerous. I’m asking people to stick out their neck–to place everything they have on the line for Jesus because he placed everything He had on the line for us. I’m calling people to danger and this week the implications of that is really real.

I used to think calling people to do something dangerous was the cool thing to do. We get to do something others aren’t willing to do. But this week has changed that for me. It’s made it doing something dangerous real. It’s put a tangible price on what could possibly happen to me and some of the people I care about the most. And while I don’t like the price that it may cost, I’m willing to pay that cost to continue to follow Jesus.

Why you ask? Why would we do dangerous (but not unwise) things in order to follow Him? Well I’m glad you asked. We’ve become convinced that knowing Jesus is better than anything else this world has to offer–even the physical safety of ourselves and our loved ones. We love Jesus more than we love everyone around us, including ourselves. And it’s this love…this love for Him born out of gratefulness for what He sacrificed for us…that compels us. We want to share everything we have with Him and be made to look like Him, even if that means some day dying like He died. We believe Jesus and His resurrection is real.

And that is why we embrace the lifestyle we do. And its why I invite others into it. Not because I don’t see the dangers. I do. But I also see the great reward stored up for those who are unashamed to lay down their lives for Jesus.

“If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it.” -Mark 8:35

Photo Credit: Red and White Stop Road Sign Photo by Edwin Hooper