“Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apsotles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he needed.” Acts 2:42-45
If God ever gives me permission to start a new church the name will be “Lifeboat 14.” The story of Lifeboat 14, and it may be an urban legend but it’s still good, is that an hour after the Titanic sank it was still pulling survivors from the icy waters of the north Atlantic. Some versions of the tale even contend that it was the only lifeboat to go back. That’s the kind of church I want to be part of; one that doesn’t find safety and then run away from others in trouble. I want to be part of a church family that finds safety in Christ and then goes right back into the dangerous territory from which they were saved to rescue others. I guess you could say that we’re all in the same boat and we all came from out of the same boat.
I already have a sketch of the marketing plan for this church:
Our initial evangelism campaign would have some of these tag lines:
“Sinners not welcome…they’re invited”; “Homosexuals not welcome…they’re wanted”; “Addicts not wanted…they’re loved”; “Prostitutes not welcome…they’re rescued”; etc.
I’d like the doors of Lifeboat 14 to be attached to a building on the wrong side of the tracks. You know which side I mean; the side that most good church people avoid. It seems to me that churches belong in the bad part of town because that’s where the ship is sinking the fastest and people need to be rescued with the most urgency.
Picture this with me, there’s a town just south of where I live in suburbia. It’s a smallish town caught between the urban blight of a major city just 25 miles to the north, the monotony of encroaching suburban subdivisions and the isolation of rural America to its south. I would say that time has forgotten this town, but the onslaught of contemporary issues has swept over it like a tsunami.
To all appearances it’s a quaint little town, except it’s still full of hurting people. Just one day monitoring local police radio frequencies reveals that workers are desperately needed for the harvest. There are drugs to be had from the nearby city; there are race conflicts passed down for generations; there are alcohol issues stemming from decades of oppression; there untold strains on the infrastructure caused by an influx of seasonal workers. I suspect that this could describe just about any of one thousand towns that are on the other side of the tracks.
In the center of town there’s an abandoned theater. The kind of theater that in decades past would have entertained young courters and their beaus with flickering images of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Jimmy Stewart, Liz Taylor and James Cagney. Children of an earlier time would have whiled away their Saturdays watching matinees of Tom Mix, Roy Rogers and serial cliff hangers. It must have been a grand place in a small town. But now it sits abandoned, surrounded by abandoned buildings in neighborhoods depressed by the same issues that plague inner cities.
That’s exactly where I would start Lifeboat 14, right in the worst place possible to start a church. In fact, after starting Lifeboat 14 there I’d like to launch a whole fleet of Lifeboats in other worst possible places. An old theater is uniquely equipped for great worship (“Everyone was filled with awe…”); ample stage space, ready made seating, rigging for audio, lighting and other equipment, adequate traffic flow consideration and it’s culturally familiar. It’s also centrally located in town to make it accessible for foot traffic and for deploying members into the community to serve.
Worship services would serve one purpose in two parts: 1) to get us so in touch with God that… 2)He would flow through us into the lives of those all around Lifeboat 14. Immediately following worship we would serve the hurting, the hungry, the alienated, the ostracized and the abandoned. It might be a soup kitchen, it might be a free clinic, it might be visiting shut-ins, it might be hospital visits; but whatever it is it would start immediately after worship. Actually, it would be a continuation of worship and would be our act of worship throughout the week. Why start immediately after church? Because tomorrow is too late and let’s be honest, most of us forget how awesome God was in church while we try to get to Golden Corral before the Methodists.
And everyone would participate, everyone in Lifeboat 14 would be given an oar (“All the believers were together…selling their possessions…gave to anyone as he has need.”) We would all be in the Lifeboat together going back into dangerous waters to rescue those who are drowning just like we used to be. It’s become quite vogue in recent years to say things like “Love God, Love People;” “Love Him, Tell Them;” and post signs at church exits that proclaim “Now entering the mission field.” Let’s put our worship right in the middle of the mission field and reap the harvest with urgency and immediacy.
If this all sounds a bit familiar, it is. This church already exists. It’s the church described in Acts 2. It’s church we’ve been called to be. Jesus intends us all to be in the same boat, the same lifeboat that goes back after others. Having been plucked from the icy waters of death ourselves He compels us to row right back into harm’s way and rescue another and another and another.
If you’ll pardon my mixing of metaphors, in a day when we reminisce for the old days and traditions, let’s go real old school. Let’s go Acts old school and let our “awethentic” corporate worship of an awesome God lead to the Lord adding to our numbers daily those who are saved.
Everybody in the boat!