Thoughts on strategy from a recent Way of Life Village gathering…

When we started out on this mission we told people why East Hollywood is a strategic place for us to share and demonstrate the message of Jesus Christ. People are closed to religion but open to spirituality.  Since so many people in E-Ho have relationships in other areas of the city and globe, as E-Ho residents discover the joys of surrendering to Christ they have the potential to share this new life with people in areas we could never touch ourselves.  For this reason, I still believe this place is “strategic.” (Only God knows what really will happen, though.)

But those of us in Way of Life Village also like to say that any place can become strategic as long as Christ’s followers are willing to arrange their lifestyles accordingly.

Does God call certain people to live and minister in certain cities and countries at certain times in history because “the fields are white for the harvest?”

If so, does that mean God has given up on the other places that aren’t “hot spots” right now in human opinion? 

Churches in the U.S. get excited about sending missionaries and church planters to foreign countries and our nations “inner city” neighborhoods. Yet many of these same churches lack zeal for missions done in their own communities where they could have the most influence.

God wants people to experience salvation in the United States and Asia. Outside the “10/40 Window” and inside it. In the bus stop of dusty Barstow (a small town in the California desert) and the urban ghettos of Los Angeles.

Paid missionaries and their sending churches and agencies will continue to ask themselves, “Is this a strategic place for us to be right now?” I support that thinking.

But I wish all Christians everywhere would ask themselves, “How are we living strategically in the place we’re in?”

The Great Commission as I understand it is not a divine order to send a few Christian missionaries away to a few “strategic places.” As I intrepret these words of Jesus, it is a call to live strategically and intentionally for the gospel, making disciples of all ethnic peoples as we go. Some of us will end up in other places of the world as we respond to this call. Others of us will stay right where we are. But for all of us, joining Jesus in mission will become a way of life.

Categories: the how
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[Minor editing to this article has occurred since it originally was posted.]

What we’re doing in LA is an experiment. Some churches don’t like to support experiments. 

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Categories: the how
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I’ve been meaning to write about this for a couple months.  There are some Bahá’í missionaries who come to our neighborhood every Monday night to convert all of us to the Bahá’í Faith

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Categories: stories, the how
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[formerly titled "Blast from the past"] 

I’ve written about a wandering young man I used to study the Bible with who pops in and out of my life about every 6 to 9 months or so.  I’ll call him Jeremy.  Thursday night he popped back in with a call to my cell phone. 

Jeremy’s not a teenager anymore.  He’s got a kid of his own now.  I asked him how all the homies are doing, but was saddened when he gave tragic reports on each of them. 

A former Hollywood resident, my friend still lives in the LA area but says he can’t visit me in Hollywood anymore because he has too many enemies here.  The last time he was in the neighborhood some of those enemies shot at him, so I suggested we get together in a neighborhood halfway between his and mine next week.  He liked the idea.  Only the Lord knows if it’ll happen.  I really hope so.

Categories: stories
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There are days when I am awed by how much I can understand and communicate in Spanish (not my native language).  By God’s Spirit I find myself navigating conversations light years beyond my level of competency.  But Saturday was not one of those days.    

Confusion.  Pure confusion.  I spent over four hours with a new Jesus-follower sincerely trying to listen to what was on his heart, and I could not.  Oh, it was so frustrating!!

Categories: stories
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Two middle-aged women have just finished cleaning a large house in the Hollywood Hills.  After a day’s work, they return to the flats of East Hollywood to take a load off and drink Tecate.  They sit down on the front stoop of my neighbor’s apartment building where he and I are shooting the breeze.  My neighbor introduces us in Spanish. 

“This is my friend Felipe.  He’s a missionary,” he says.  Oh great, I think to myself, he just ruined my first impression with these two souls.  

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Categories: stories
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