Yesterday, The Vine experimented.
We "went."
to Starbucks, Bob Evans, Walmart, Target, Klein's, Kohls, etc.
Our mission? To not "love our neighbor" in theory but to see actual faces of the people who live around us, work around us, play around us . . . and to ask God to help us love them like He does. We went out to pray and to begin to develop a heart, after God's own heart, for our neighbors. And yesterday was Sunday, which meant we were praying for many who choose to do something different on their Sunday mornings than go to church.
I took two of my kids to Walmart - to pray aisle by aisle and to be open if God wanted to use us to bless others. At first, it felt weird pushing an empty cart around Walmart - we were there for a higher purpose but I mean everybody else was there to shop! Then when we did put a few things in our cart, it felt weird because I felt like, why would we be shopping while we were praying? (Still have that nasty habit of compartmentalizing my spiritual life - left over from my days as a "Modern.")
After a morning of worship in the market place (yes worship - read Romans 12:1-2), we came back to Bel Air church to share our experiences. Everybody had a different story. All good. Some began to dream of how we could do ministry in the market place. "We need to begin hanging out at Starbucks - being available." Very cool . . . because that is the essence of missional - to go where people are and do worship (yes worship - have you read Romans 12:1-2 yet?) there rather than trying to get people to come to our worship in our building on our terms.
Alan Hirsch, my mentor from afar, says we have this missional DNA inside of us, but it is latent. It needs to be awakened. (a great book - The Forgotten Ways - read the review if nothing else) Yesterday, while everybody else went to worship, we WENT to worship. Go. Going. Matthew 28:19-20. Awakening latent missional DNA.
While in Walmart, without even realizing it, the words to the song below began flooding my heart. What if we prayed this everyday? "God, give me your eyes. . ."
Going shopping today? Tomorrow? Going out to eat? Paul says, "pray without ceasing . . ." I think I get it. And forty plus others get it too.
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