Dangerous Love In Action

"Love is a wrecking ball crashing into the artifices we've erected to wall ourselves off from others, especially those we do not approve of. It does not permit isolation to go unchallenged, does not agree that cutting ourselves off from our neighbors, family, co-workers, and planetary co-inhabitants is a choice we are free to make. Love demands interaction and engagement, moving out of the safe harbor of our carefully guarded retreat and exposing ourselves to the pain and hopes and joys of those around us. Love is investment, personal and persistent, in the life of another, investment in someone other than ourselves. Our approach, typically, is divestment and detachment, moving fast and far away from those who would make demands on our time, our finances, our hearts."

This coming Sunday we're moving into the 8th week of a series based, more or less, on the themes raised in Graeme Sellers' The Dangerous Kind. The chapter title is "Love: God's Gold Standard." That's where the quote above comes from.

How many Christian believers and how many churches excel at "personal and persistent... investment in someone other than ourselves"? I praise God that we have had tastes of that at Crossroads! Please praise God with me that many are being touched and transformed by the "dangerous kindness" of God as it shines through this ministry. It's such a privilege and I am more thankful than anyone but God knows.

Crossroads is becoming a "safe place for the dangerous kind"--for the kind who won't leave well enough alone, who shine in the darkness and won't give up. Please pray that the Lord would continue to bless us and stir us up to do His work, work that, to be very honest, very few other churches are willing to do.

One of the families we are blessed to be working with at the present is involved in a situation that I can't describe in full, partly because I need to make sure no one will guess who it is that we're working with. A child was hurt, charges were filed, and some supportive people in this little family's life are refusing to help. So we are doing what we can, and I am advocating for them as they seek help from others. And we are praying. Yes. We are praying and they are seeing hope. Praise God.

How many others are in a similar circumstance? How many others have we been privileged to come alongside? Dozens. In our little communities. It's quite amazing.

• Addicts are in recovery. 
  
• Mentally ill people are moving toward health. 
• Prisoners are being released. 
• Children and youth who have had very little spiritual nurture are having experiences of the outrageous unconditional love of God. 
• Once a month a party is held on Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis for people who need a break. 
• Missionaries who reach out to at risk children, prostitutes, virtual "slaves" in garment factories are being supported and raised up. 
• And many are being challenged and discipled in ways they never have in the past.

Crossroads is a place for God's outgoing, practical, strong LOVE, a place that allows for that love to flow in a way that I've rarely experienced. Please continue to pray, and come alongside Crossroads as the Lord leads so that the blessings will continue in the days and weeks to come.

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