January Newsletter

Hey people:

Happy New Year! It seems weird to write 2007 on everything. Seems like just yesterday we were worried about Y2K and now we're almost a decade away from that. Anyway...

I've been thinking about proximity. It has come up in my prayer time and my discussions and as I began to think about it I saw its value to the church in America. Webster's Dictionary defines proximate as: very near, or close. Proximity then is the state of being proximate. In our case the church should begin to consider what this means for us and how it can be used as a tool of love. Here's what I mean.

Vanguard Street Ministries was born almost eight years ago. As we went into the streets we met a lot of people and began to see a pattern in many of them. The pattern? They loved Jesus but hated the church. Many of them had been judged, criticized, and hurt by some body of believers at some time and (although many of them could acknowledge their need for Christian fellowship) could not force themselves back into the walls of a building. We needed to help bridge the gap, which was part of our calling. As the years went by we saw many other Christian organizations and ministries reaching out to the people we were with but we saw a fundamental error in many of their attempts. They were doing what they thought was best and not necessarily meeting the actual needs of the people. As I sat back to think about this I could see it had to do with proximity. The hearts of those from the church were in the right place but they weren't close enough to the people to hear their real needs. A couple examples:

George is an admitted alcoholic who lives two blocks from the church Vanguard has its offices in. We met him one night as he was having a beer on his porch and he decided to come to the church the next Sunday. But I have seen ministries trying to reach George by bringing gift baskets or tracts or other tested evangelical strategies and they aren't working. Because we're always in the neighborhood and around George we have become friends. As the friendship has grown we have realized that although he doesn't mind the efforts of those ministries, his deepest need at this time is fellowship. So our ministry to him is going to sit with him or just having a BBQ night in his lawn. His need for friendship is his biggest need. The reason we know about it is because of our proximity to the people who we're ministering to.

I talked with my friend Alan at the mission the other day and he was telling me how much he appreciated us there. We are at the mission every Wednesday to do devotions or games and have become friends with many of the people there. As we talked Alan mentioned how impossible it would be for someone to go hungry in Kalamazoo. He mentioned the different soup kitchens and luncheons available for homeless people and pointed out that a person could eat four or five times a day in Kalamazoo if they wanted to. Yet when most ministries or bodies of believers (please hear me that their hearts are in the right spot or they wouldn't even be reaching out) think about serving the homeless most of their minds go to supplying food or clothing, neither of which are hard to get for the homeless of Kalamazoo. The reason Vanguard has become endeared to these people is because we bring things that minister to their real needs. We bring pillows, because sometimes sleeping at the mission would be easier with a nice pillow. We bring new socks and underwear because these are luxuries for homeless people. We bring miniature snacks that they can carry in their pockets as they walk around during the day. But the reason we know what to bring is because of our closeness to them. Our proximity allows us to love them better. This is my challenge to you: get close enough to the people you're ministering to, to actually know what their real needs are, and then love them however the Spirit shows you.

Please hear me: The efforts of the ministries we see in the streets are admirable. But sometimes even though the thoughts are honorable, the ministry is ineffective because the people in the ministries aren't close enough to know the real needs of the people they are ministering to.

My challenge to you and to me for 2007? Be with the people. Jesus was. They called him a drunk and a friend of sinners. The Pharisees had to go to the homes of known sinners to check on him because he was with them a lot. For us to resemble Him and reverse the hatred of the church we're going to have to get our hands dirty. But sometimes it's fun to roll in the mud. Try it sometime!


I love you guys,


Merry 2007



N8