Last night (Thursday) about 50 people came together at Wornall Road Baptist Church to pray for Southwest High School. Included in this number for many who are alumni of Southwest, who work and live in Kansas City, whose hearts are broken for the condition their school has gotten in to. After gathering in a concert of prayer for about 30 minutes, we all walked out the front doors of our church, down the street two blocks, and gathered across the street in front of Southwest. We circled, we prayed, some cried, and we poured out our hearts to God, asking him to do a movement in our school(s).
I walked away from Thursday just plain exhausted. I worked at launching Wornall Road's new website in the morning (check it out http://www.wornallroad.org/), went and tutored junior high students for three hours in the afternoon, and then went back to set up the church for the prayer gathering. I was exhausted, but I must tell you, I felt good. I felt good for a number of reasons. First, I felt good to have been able to help and serve many different people during one day. Second, and in my mind and heart more strongly, it is good to be a part of a church who attempts, to the best of our ability, to really put action to what we say when we communicate that we want to love and bless our community.
Jesus said to "love your neigbhor as YOURSELF". I think if a lot of us are honest with ourselves, myself included, we would say that happens very little in our lives. Heck, most of us do not even know who our neigbhors are, much less know how to love them. And, even if we do know are neigbhors, are we preapred to love them as much as we love ourself? Are we prepared to provide for them as we provide for ourself? Are we prepared to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of others? These are tough questions to ask, but questions that Jesus demands us to answer, if we say we follow him.
We are nothing special at Wornall Road. Believe you me, we are not. But God has shown all of us at Wornall Road alot of grace, and we simply wish to extend it out to others. I'm also so very glad that I am a part of a body of believers that takes action. Not only do they take action, but they take action quickly.That probably has been one of the most remarkable things I have seen in Wornall Road. The people of Wornall Road step out in faith, take action, even when they may not know at that moment where the resources are going to come from, or who is going to step up to lead. They don't wait until they see someone else doing something and then jump on board-in many respects-they see a need, and begin working immediately.
A great example of this is the meals we provide for the Southwest High School sports teams. As we found out that the students leave from school to go to their games, without eating anything, we couldn't keep that information to ourselves and do nothing with it.The meals we provide to the best of our ability are nothing special. It's a brown paper bag with a sandwich, fruit, some chips, bottle of water and cookies. Over the past month, however, I have seen people step up and serve (and in many respects sacrifice) to make these meals occur. Never once did we have to "beg" people to get involved. When we announced what we were going to do, they stepped up, and continually sent emails or texts wanting to know what they could do. Better than this, though, never once did we have to answer the question-"How does this further Wornall Road" or a question of the sort.
That's where the the rubber hits the road, and for why I am grateful I am a part of this church. Wornall Road Baptist Church is not about Wornall Road Baptist Church. Wornall Road Baptist Church is about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, lived out. Period. Wornall Road Baptist Church seeks to love it's neigbhor as itself. Are we perfect at it? Absolutely not. In fact, we have a lot of learning in this area, as most do. But even if we make mistakes along the way, we will press on, perhaps even in the world's eyes foolishly, pointing our neigbhors to the cross of Jesus Christ.
The Gospel, the Good News, is why we are what we are, and why we do what we do. I don't write what I did about the people of Wornall Road above to give them big heads, to make them feel good about themselves, or to say they are the best. In fact, they/we need God's grace as much as ever. That is the Gospel-that without Christ daily, we are nothing.
Christ is our hope. And through Christ, we have hope, and can provide hope, as we serve and pray for Southwest High School.
