We Must Go

There has been a lot of discussion going on in recent weeks - in church, among friends, in my head - about what exactly it looks like to live out our responsibility to serve the least, last and the lost in our everyday. We have been wrestling with what it means to be truly present and available to a community of people whose needs are so tangible and whose struggles sit right on their doorstep (if they have a doorstep) for all to see every single day. What it means to live a life of service and compassion instead of acting it out one or two days a week. What it means to love without strings attached, without agenda, in word AND in deed.

Scott recently attended a conference in Nashville for people in the healthcare field who want to serve the poor and underserved in their respective communities. They talked a lot about community development and gave examples of communities that have been literally transformed and given a new start by people who cared enough to go there. Scott came back more excited and passionate than I think I've seen him, and as he enthusiastically explained their philosophy to me, I got excited as well. These doctors, social workers, nurses, public health workers, whoever, picked one of the most dangerous, poverty-stricken, gang- and drug-ridden neighborhoods in Memphis and established a huge clinic that now performs approximately 80,000 patient visits a year. That's great. But the truly remarkable part comes next: after several years of working in this area, establishing relationships with people, and making themselves available to people who needed them, a group of them got up and moved. Moved. To the ghetto. A bunch of white, formerly suburban, Ivy League-educated physicians got their wives and children together and moved to one of the most desperate and dangerous places in the United States.

Because they went there, they were able to get to know the people in the neighborhood, form real-life relationships, and show this broken, desperate community that they were going to live right alongside them. After a time, kids would stop by and hang out at the house with the doctors' kids. After-school programs were started, as well as skills classes for adults and teenagers. Gardens were planted. Parks and buildings were revitalized. Families were taught how to manage their money, take ownership of their careers and houses. People were taught that they mattered.

This all sounds amazing, doesn't it? To actually get up, stop just singing (see video in last post), and go? It's tricky, though. It's all well and good to sing every day about what we need to do or how to do it, but it's a whole different thing entirely when you are confronted with actually doing it. Going requires a complete renovation of priorities, ambitions, and thinking. I definitely believe that the willingness to make that kind of life change is only something that God can put in our hearts. And He can do that in so many different ways - I realize not everyone is called to move into gang territory and live next door to drug dealers. But what an amazing inspiration.

How do we know when, where, or how, we're supposed to go? I have no idea, but I'm praying that at least being aware of the need is a good start. It's a struggle, a process, that has to be cultivated and grown. We know that it has to happen - we know that we're not just supposed to sing. But just singing can be easy...Going is not.