Charging into Hell

      This past week I went to play basketball in a park across the street from where some of our kids at Impact live.  It was not an ideal place for me to be ever as a white person, much less playing basketball, especially when my kids tell me that they do bad stuff at this park.  There I played some ball with a couple of our boys, and a middle schooler from the neighborhood started to play with us.  Which is exactly what I wanted, I wanted to run into a kid from the neighborhood I didn't know.  This kid was named Donnie, and he seemed like a nice kid, and I remembered our middle school boys were hanging out that night.  So I asked Donnie, and he hopped in the van, and we took off to the church.

         It would be nice if things like that always went that smoothly.  I like taking the kids to church and getting them out of their hellish neighborhoods.  My whole job is centered around telling these kids about Jesus, and to hopefully get them out of the chaos and hell that is in their life.  The next day, I realized just how much I hated dropping my elementary kids off at the same place after Children's Night.  I knew what would happen when they went through the door.  They would be ignored, slapped in the head, yelled at, and hungry.

       The positive is that they were coming from church where they were loved, hugged, fed a hot meal, and taught about Jesus.  It saddens me to drop them off into the chaos and mess surrounding their life.  I don't like doing this because it feels like everything we just did at church is contradicted and reversed at home.

       All of this reminded me of a quote by Charles Thomas Studd, a Scotsmen after my own heart.  He says "Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell; I want to run a rescue mission within a yard of hell."    I only wish I could keep them out of hell longer.  I'm glad that I can charge into their hell and bring a little glimpse of heaven into their lives, I just wish it could be more.  So until then I'll keep going to play basketball, and driving my van in that neighborhood bringing kids to church.  I also encourage any of you who read this blog to do the same.  Find the hells in your lives and charge into them, and bring a little glimpse of how the world should be and how heaven is going to be.

My Friend Shane.

I want to brag about my friend Shane Hughes.  Shane was my campus minister all through my time in Arkansas, even the times when I wasn’t attending his school.  He’s one of the people who pushed me to come intern at Impact, and is part of the reason we have so many interns from Arkansas.  He was also one of the people who encouraged me to pursue ministry after I finished school.  Last week, he brought his campus ministry group for the second time to come work with us at Impact.  

            While they were here, I witnessed something cool that was happening while they worked.  They were hard at work painting Claudia Aleman’s house.  I realized quickly that Shane was going to get a lot out of this experience.  You see thirteen years ago or so, Shane came to intern with middle school group at Impact, and in that middle school group was a young girl named Claudia Aleman.  I can’t tell you a lot about what happened that summer.  Today though, I see him scraping and painting her house, and being a servant.  I think it’s awesome that Shane has had such a wonderful commitment to the work that we do here at Impact.  Someday, I hope that almost fifteen years I can still be involved in my kids’ lives, whether I’m here still at Impact or elsewhere.  Whether I’m seeing them and their kids every Sunday morning at church or whether I’m bringing a group once a year, I pray that I am still making a difference in their lives.  

Grace and Peace,

John