come to the table

On Monday, JustLove had it's Easter Term Launch, and Brian Heasley, national director of 24/7 prayer, came to speak about community and justice. He told us his work Ibiza, the 'Sodom and Gomorrah' of Europe. He moved there with family, and went out at night asking people he found on the streets, those who were drunk, those who were vulnerable, those whose were working as prostitutes, those addicted to or dealing in drugs, if he could pray for them. One man he talked to stopped halfway through telling him his story, and said 'You're actually listening to me, why are you doing that?'

It reminded me of a TED talk I heard about effective communication, which said the basis of it was, of course, listening. Especially when dealing with people who are hurt and broken, they need understanding and empathy, and time. I remember a pastor once telling us that love is spelled with 4 letter: t-i-m-e. (Which completely blew my mind at the time) It's quite sad I think that when I ask someone 'How are you?', the answer usually is 'fine, thanks' or 'good'. And the rest of the conversation is expected to continue, the ball back in my court to speak again. What I really want to know is how you are, really. Did you see anything beautiful today? Has your heart beat a steady pace or did it drop or clench or hurt recently? How is your family? What most excited you about your lectures in the past week? But I think listening has become such a rarity that people assume that they cannot answer in more than quick generalities.

When we evangelise to others, it's so tempting to just blurt out the whole gospel and hope it convinced them of Jesus. But if we really want to show Jesus to people, maybe we should listen like he did, when he let people come to him to tell him their problems so he could heal them, or when he let the two men on the road to Emmaus talk about their confusion over the resurrection, although they were puzzling over what essentially happened to Him.

Brian also talked about how he had spoken to prostitutes, many whom told him they were Christian, but were turned away from churches. That hurt my heart, but it's such a normal thing, for churches to be filled with people who (at least materially) are afloat. Congregations can become so 'same', which to some degree should be the case, since everyone shares a love or curiosity about Jesus. But Jesus welcomed the tax-paper and prostitute and destitute and diseased. And when he preached to the 5000 it wasn't to 5000 perfect people. It was to a motley crew of every body who decided to come to the hillside. I dream of churches that welcome the homeless, and the prostitutes, and the physically and mentally disabled, and the poor, and the homosexual and transexual and pansexual and bisexual and on and on and on. To love them and point them to Jesus who loves them and wants them to stick with Him. Thankfully there are churches and groups already like that, and by God's grace there will be more and more.