A Haven, Not a Hell

When I lived in San Francisco, I knew this wild, emergent, urban missionary named Mark Scandrette. He was full of crazy ideas about communal living and translating the gospel to a postmodern culture. I only hung out with him a few times, but we had good conversation and I left each meeting thinking deeply about the gospel and culture and how we were going to reach people for Christ. I happened to stumble upon his website today (HT: Andrew Jones) and I ran across a poem that his 11 year old son wrote. It is pretty profound, and with my current thoughts about the Kingdom of God, I thought it was fitting:

Kids crying
Drunkards swaggering
moms yelling
men swapping drugs in dark alleys
cars crashing
people on the street
dogs and cats fighting
in all but forgotten neighborhoods

But… maybe
Just maybe
We can give the kids candy
Help the drunk
Cool down the moms
Take away the drugs from the men
Help people get out of their cars
Invite the homeless into our homes
and separate the cat from the dog
and maybe
Just maybe
We can make a haven and not a hell

–Isaiah Scandrette, Spring 2008

Chew on that for a while.  And yes, I understand that the proclamation of the gospel was not mentioned in this poem, at least not in words. But, if we all got involved in our neighborhoods and brought that kind of reconciliation and peace to the people around us, I think that we would be create an environment where the gospel could be shared and received much more readily. What do you think?

Comments

[Todd]

Alan,
Small world. I am friends with Mark. Spent time at a conference, and sharing a condo, with Mark last October in Nassau. He is a great thinker about connecting Christ with culture. He has a fellow on board with him, Adam Klein, who is quite the poet too.

[Bob Cleveland]

Wow .. I was learning to wave bye-bye at 11, and his son writes THAT?

There's so much truth in it. When I see that giving a cup of cold water in Jesus' name is a big thing to Him, I also see churches making that an evangelistic thing. But when He said "in my name", it means in His authority, in His character. And this poem pretty well nails that.

[Laura Hicks]

wow. that is profound. Gets me to thinking about Trenholm Court, one of the projects here in Montgomery where we were for 2 years every week. Man, being there on Sunday, giving the kids candy and playing games when most of them don't have any anyone to give them time or attention or hope ever, was awesome. I have a burning to get back there. I somehow want to give Quint, the 18 yr old girl I met a scholarshsip to go to college. She wants to go but doesn't have the means to. What if we change her life? Forever. What kind of legacy would she leave? With God, all things are possible.

[Lisa Rose]

Preach on brother....out of the mouths of babes! If people would get past their fears of people who are different...maybe the Church would actually make a difference!

As my son says, " we Christians need to get down and dirty"(he means not being afraid to get our hands dirty in loving people) Out of the mouths of babes!