Where is THE CHURCH?

Kids with IDD [intellectual developmental disabilities] pose a greater risk of sexual deviancy. They pose behavioral risks that hinder a youth group's normal functioning, making it difficult to minister unless they are removed.  -- an anonymous pastor  [for good reason, in my opinion]

There is a LOT of very sad news today:  Robin Williams committed suicide, ISIS is on the march in Iraq, Christians are under attack in many corners of the world, Ukraine is an explosion waiting to happen, and much more!  It sounds simplistic to summarize that we live in a totally broken world, but it's the truth!

For all the issues, THE CHURCH of Jesus Christ (His invisible body) MUST be the first in line! 
We must speak into hearts in desperate despair like Robin Williams'.  He gave such joy to so many people, and yet his own heart was so dark that he couldn't take it anymore because the pain just screamed for relief.

We must give and pray and even go to be on the frontlines where we can to be the hands and feet and heart of Jesus to people hated, displaced, and hunted for their faith!  Franklin Graham of Samaritan's Purse is on the front lines in Iraq providing shelter tents for many of the refugees who fled with only their lives.  I was so struck with the truckload of cradles just like this one I saw being unloaded in the tent city Samaritan's Purse is erecting in Erbil, Iraq.  What a sweet touch!

Two families who are friends have just in the last few days returned to ministry in Ukraine.  They have no idea what the future holds, but that's where God has planted their feet so there they stand to be salt and light in a very dark time for Ukraine. What the future holds only God knows for sure! 

All that and more seems far away and only comes close on our computer screens.  Then I read a quote like the one above from a pastor, no less, and my heart cracks more!  How can we EVER measure ministry by risk alone?  Of course, we need to be wise and prayerful, but LIFE itself is a risk from start to finish!  If we ever hope to walk in the steps of Jesus and do ministry the way He did, we can't sit behind a desk or hide with our technology and talk about  behavioral risks and IDD as an excuse for not living and loving as Jesus did! 

It was pretty risky from a human view for Jesus to land on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee on a dark night.  But, Jesus had a Divine appointment:

They went across the Sea of Galilee to the area of the Gerasenes. Jesus got out of the boat. A man with an evil spirit came from the tombs to meet him. The man lived in the tombs. No one could keep him tied up anymore. Not even a chain could hold him. His hands and feet had often been chained. But he tore the chains apart. And he broke the iron cuffs on his ankles. No one was strong enough to control him. Night and day he screamed among the tombs and in the hills. He cut himself with stones. - Mark 5:1-5

Jesus touched the leper. 

 

Jesus made blind eyes see. 

 

Jesus opened deaf ears. 

 

Jesus raised the dead. 

 

He didn't shrink with fear or disgust nor did he calculate risk. 

 

He calls us to be like Him! 

 

If we do ministry like He did, then it's messy and risky and has eternity in view!  And, the same Spirit who was in and with Jesus walks with us in ministry even and especially when it's messy and risky!

Broken-Hearted? !!!

"My heart is broken!" Those are not just words dramatically uttered by a teen "drama queen." "She/he has a broken heart ... . " Heard that or said that?

It is interesting that when someone goes for open heart surgery to repair some mal-function or mal-formation of the heart, no one talks about that person's heart being broken. (Or, at least, I have never heard it expressed that way.) Yet, in a physical sense, the person is going for heart surgery because something is "broken."

But, the broken heart is something else entirely. What are some of the things we attribute as causes for a broken heart? Loss of "true" love? Loss of someone special and dear? Loss of a pet? Loss of a valued possession? Loss of a job, child, spouse, parent or friend? Loss in some major aspect of life? It is a long list. This is only the beginning. The "causes" are almost as numerous as the hearts that are broken.

Indeed it is true that all of the above causes and many more do contribute to the condition we label "broken heart." It is a real condition, and it happens to just about everyone in life!

AND once one's heart is "broken," there is no glue that can fix it. Rather there's something even better!

We all experience the pain of a broken heart. Then we have a choice of what we do and where we go from there. Do we crash and burn? Do we crawl behind a wall of some sort, cover our heads and cower there licking our wounds? Do we spend time lashing out at others so they see our pain and experience pain we inflict? OR do we turn our focus toward the One (Jesus) who is in the business of fixing broken hearts? Only He can restore this kind of brokenness!

We come to Jesus. We simply tell Him that we are broken and broken-hearted and need His restoring love. We ask for His help.

He doesn't take away the brokenness. He helps us use our own brokenness in outward focus toward others. A "broken heart" in the hands of Jesus is a heart that can reach out and love others more deeply than ever before due to the very brokenness we experience.

It is a wild and crazy paradox that broken hearts and broken people can be the tools God uses to restore other broken hearts and broken people in this broken world we live in! It is God's plan for reaching our world, our community, our "space" one heart at a time in relationship with God first and then with other "broken hearts."

Dr. Bob Pierce who founded World Vision and later Samaritan's Purse (now the ministry of Franklin Graham) once wrote in the front of his Bible: "Let my heart be broken with the things that break the heart of God." If you know Bob Pierce's story, it is full of brokenness and pain. Dr. Richard Halverson, pastor of Fourth Presbyterian Church in the greater Washington DC area and later Chaplain to the U.S. Senate once said, "Bob Pierce functioned from a broken heart." And the record is clear that Bob Pierce functioned very brokenly at times from that broken heart - which encourages me, but God still used him in a powerful way to build God's eternal kingdom.

Our own personal brokenness only has value as it reaches out to others to touch their brokenness and to point them to the only One who can take brokenness and bring restoration! That's what we are doing at a Restoration Church in the South Hills of Pittsburgh! If you are broken and you know it, then come gather with us as we all experience God's wonderful grace of restoration together!