Ministering to the fringes

I still remember my phone ringing at 2:00 am and crawling out of bed to visit a brother who was sitting in a county jail. I sat with a mother who had just learned her son had overdosed for the 3rd time and they didn't know if he would make it through. I have visited prisons, drug treatment programs and churches that minister to the fringes of our society. Life isn't quite as clean and antiseptic in those communities.

This blog is for those of us who "don't get out much." We attend worship in our Easter Sunday dresses, put on our blue blazer and and sing, "more of Him and less of me." I don't mean to criticize the worship of the Lord's church, but I am reminded of a sign I once saw mounted over the exit of a small country church, "Enter to worship, leave to serve."

I get most frustrated with our petty little arguments over how many (and what kind) of songs to sing, whether the service ran too long, while billions are lost in sin, our own brothers and sisters are caught in the mire of complacency and contempt, and all around us the world is hungry, hurting and without God in their lives.

Occassionally, I get rebuked for the "plain-talk" approach I take in my blog. This isn't inspired, it's not even Sunday morning Bible-class (though sometimes I think it should be), its my personal ramblings on life and the world we live in. Get your head out of the ground. Step outside the comfort of your insulated, air-conditioned houses and look around at the world. Marriages are collapsing at alarming rates, children are dying because they don't have clean water to drink, and our own offspring are caught in the morass of a culture that looks more like the hog pen the prodigal son wallowed in than it does anything resembling goodness and godliness.

The problem is simple to identify: I don't want to get my hands dirty. I don't want my phone ringing at 2:00 am when I am trying to sleep. I don't want to forgo dinner and a movie in order to feed hungry children. The problem is simple - I'm SELFISH! 

I can preach and rant and rave about adultery, murder, covetous and a multitude of other sins (e.g. Romans 1), but my sins of omission are just as black and heinous and disgusting before God. Edgar A. Guest was right when he said, "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."