BUMPER CAR CHURCH

Mobility within the human race can be equated to driving bumper cars at the FunPark.  We find that much of life involves bouncing off of one another.  Ministry can be so perceived if fear is within the mix; we really want to serve God but are afraid to interact with both neighbor and stranger.

Rather than connect and relate and assist, fear leads us to make contact only to quickly remove ourselves by bounding right on past.

Meaningful ministry improves when we intentionally relate to those in our path.  It takes practice for some of us to keep from bouncing away due to an uncertainty of what we should say or do.

There is at least one cure to break our Bumper Car activity.  That is to encounter others with compassion. Henri Nouwen said it well, For a compassionate man nothing human is alien: no joy and no sorrow, no way of living and no way of dying.  

This compassion is authority because it does not tolerate the pressures of the in-group, but breaks through the boundaries between languages and countries, rich and poor, educated and illiterate.  This compassion pulls away from the fearful clique in to the large world where they can see that every human face is the face of a neighbor.

Church cliques develop largely from fear.  To find safety among our developed few fits self quite comfortably; but it begs as to what is to be done for the stranger who just walked into the scene.

Today I believe I would easily be regarded as a people-person.  I can visit with anyone.  But not the case in my first years of ministry.  I loved those I knew well; but I remained aloof from those I did not know.

Speak to them in a greeting?  Of course.

Connect with them?  Nope.  Bumper car!  Bumper car!

What changed is what Nouwen addresses.  I began to notice Jesus walked with extreme compassion for all. He did not wait for men and women to enter the foyer. He walked the streets and the lanes graciously connecting to all sorts from a woman at a well to a man up a tree.

Jesus saw people differently than I did.  He loved them.  I feared them.

He saw them from eyes of compassion while I saw them from eyes of threat.  What should I say?  What will they want?  What if they need something that I don't know how it would play out?

Compassion transfers us from Bumper Car Church to genuine family.  If one of the kids happens to bring a guest to the reunion, we accept him or her with grace rather than snub with hesitation.  If we encounter a stranger at a cafe or another stranded at the mall, our sympathetic compassion nudges us toward rather than deflecting away.

No, we are not about Bumper Car Church.  We are about noticing, about caring, about interacting with those we know, those we slightly know, and those we haven't a clue who they are.  The reason?  We haven't just been baptized into Jesus.  We have taken on His Spirit which greatly leads us to love all.

Bumper Car Church?  No, we desire to grow into a Seeing All People Church.