Life Together

I looked around the circle, listening, delighting in what I saw.

We were in our Family Room, Room 200 at the Radiant Inn, a motel room

we rent to better serve our friends. It provides drop-in space, connections

to resources, empowerment for people to move forward, all surrounded

with the love of Jesus. It’s Thursday afternoon and we are having

devotions. 7 or 8 of us. Being together.

I was in and out, chatting with someone who had dropped by, curious about

the Family Room, not yet ready to come inside. Here, as in all our work, we

let people move at their own pace.

Back inside, I caught the end of the devotional about God being the creator.

Spirited, interesting conversation. Then, we went around the circle, sharing

things good and bad, asking for prayer. Big stuff came out—deaths, abuse

and trafficking experiences, the rampant temptations of Colfax. Most of our

friends live traumatized, razor edge lives, addiction ever lurking. But

celebrations too.

The chatter was remarkable, not just for the stuff shared, but also for good-

natured back and forth woven through it. Where people came from, which

state was best. And, lots of football smack-talk, college and pro. I got in my

share, advocating for my Michigan Wolverines when someone claimed the

Ohio State Buckeyes were the best team in the land. Then, commiserated

with a Saints fan about the fact that they are as dismal as the Broncos.

The mix was remarkable—tears, laughter, smack talk. The stuff you do with

family and friends when you are hanging together. You share joys and

hardships. And, lots of small talk. All with a mix of folks who don’t have

many places to do that. For many, their relational circle is as battered as

they are, life shrunk to a lonely motel room. Today we do life together. And,

doing life together knits us even further together. All with Jesus in the

center. All as He intended.

Life together. Happening in Room 200 at the Radiant Inn.

Context, as everyone says, matters. I am aware as we meet that in a room

just above us, a friend of ours was shot and killed by his brother just a few

months earlier. Their mom watched it happen. By my count there have

been 9 deaths here at the Radiant in the last couple of years. Yet here we

are, in what can feel like the heart of darkness. Doing life together, being

Jesus’ people, being the church, experiencing light. Together.

One friend shared how she had gotten here, inside of our JOC circle. Very

young, she’d experienced horrific abuse. She was a church-goer but never

felt accepted as she was, never felt like it was ok to not be ok. Her life

spiraled and she was pretty done with the whole God thing. When

someone from our team first knocked on her door, she opened it only a

crack and kind of snarled at them. But we kept coming back, showing up,

loving her. Doing what we do as a ministry.

Slowly she warmed to us, slowly began to change, slowly found her way

back to a faith in Jesus that had been dormant for a long time. Now she,

and others like her, sit in this circle of love and life, pain and laughter, small

talk and smack talk. Together.

I shared our journey of coming to Colfax, how Jesus was clear that I wasn’t

going to do a church in a box, that our job was to go to the motels and the

streets, simply showing up and loving people. Rather than asking people to

come to us, we went to them,

Our whole team knows, and believes in, the answer. People ask, “Where is

your church?” We say, “It’s right here. We bring church to people who are

unlikely to ‘come to church.’”

It was a powerful hour, one of the more enjoyable times I’ve had in a long

time. I pray over the group. After, folks linger, getting food and clothing from

our supply room, using points they earn through various activities, a way to

help them with needs but also to empower them in taking steps forward.

Life together. Where we laugh and cry, share deep needs, figure out next

steps in life, talk smack, and tell jokes.

What a beautiful time. With beautiful friends. In a beautiful space in the

middle of East Colfax darkness.

That hour was one of the best experiences of church I’d had in a long time.

Life, I think, as Jesus intended it to be.

Thanks for being on this journey with us. Our work on the streets, in the

motels, and now in the Family Room, are a gift to us and our friends. And,

as Jesus said, the fields around us are white unto harvest.

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