Praying Liberally Wilmington

We met last night at the Bellefonte Cafe (you can get the menu here--PDF).

This was much more successful than the first meeting in August, which turned out not to a meeting. Rather, it was an hour of my surfing the web on my cell phone.

(It was my own doing. I got caught in the backwash of a personal crisis of someone close to me and failed to do any publicity to speak of.)

Through a roundabout road, there was a small story about Praying Liberally in the local paper on Saturday (no, I haven't had the time to dig up the link yet, but it's on my to-do list.)

This time there were three of us. I started out by babbling for about ten minutes on how I got here (you can read the story at this link). I was quite nervous, especially since last month's fiasco, and I tend to babble when I'm nervous.

Then the others briefly spoke about why they were there. We all come from different religious backgrounds and are all at different places in our development.

And from that came a really good conversation, primarily focused on US politics, about what the heck is going on in the country and the world. By concensus, we closed with short prayers (the cafe has a private lounge that we retreated to for that).

And what I find particularly gratifying is that all three persons said they would be back.

It's a start. A small one, but definitely a start.

When I got home, I was so fired up I stayed and watched the end of the ball game, then watched M*A*S*H. reruns for two hours. I'm paying the price for that today.

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It just occurred to me: I should print up business cards with the relevant Living Liberally links on them.

A good friend of mine, one who has recently given me strength in a time of crisis, sent me this essay.

It was written by a young pastor named Greg Coates who is currently serving at an inner city church in a not very good neighborhood in a large midwestern city. It was not written for publication--it was written to express his feelings. Mr. Coates has kindly given me permission to post it.

My friend first met Mr. Coates as a youngster in his--my friend's--Sunday School Class.

There's really nothing to add to what Mr. Coates has to say.

Where the Hell is the Church?

Wed 11:01pm

The seven year old boy three doors down just slashed his wrists. Fortunately they found him before he bled to death. He was mad because social services were going to take him and his seven brothers and sisters away from their drug addicted mommy. We fed all the kids cookies, but, Oh God, they need more than that.

Mrs. E came to me crying last Monday. She's afraid that her embittered next door neighbor will seek revenge on her family for having reported him to the police for beating his wife every night. The man is now out of jail and knows who turned him in. She's already been assaulted once (in front of our church while waiting in the food pantry line) and is afraid he'll burn down her house like he did to those other buildings. She asks for prayer 'cause she thinks her brother will soon be killed.

The bastard child S. bears the insults of even the old ladies in the church for being an illegitimate girl and having a "no good" boyfriend. She embarrassed to even say hello to me, a pastor.

E. missed prayer meeting today. I hope it's not because he has relapsed.

Mr. R came over the other day and asked for some food. We gladly took some to him, but I had to turn him down when he wanted cash as well. The poor guy was so high he could hardly keep his eyes on me. I'm not sure if I'd ever seen a high person before, but it's a pathetic sight. Such slavery.

Meanwhile, all the good Christians are out in the suburbs enjoying their lattes from Starbucks and picking out a new plasma-screen HDTV for their second living room. The thought must never occur to them that hell is only a few miles away in the direction of downtown and that God needs warriors to go fight some battles.

Where the hell is the church? And why isn't it here in hell where it should be? The seven year old and Mrs. E and bastard S. and Mr. E and Mr. R need a little bit of Jesus, but there isn't much to go around. 'Cause for some reason the church has left this neighborhood and set up shop elsewhere. I'm sitting here on 12th Street and I feel alone. And I'm mad at the church for not being here for my seven year old friend.

Where the hell are you, church?

As advertised, the September me 7:00 p. m. at the Bellefonte Cafe. I've had a chance to make some contacts in the intervening weeks and am confident of a better turn out than at the first meeting.

These things do tend to start small. But we're going to keep at it.

And it only takes a few persons to have a good conversation, and, frankly, that's what it's about: good conversations. Really nothing more and nothing less.