I was encouraged to read about Russell Jackson this morning on CNN. As CNN reports

in 1997 [Russell] gave up his career as an Alabama firefighter, moved in with friends and dug into his retirement account to start Kid One Transport, a nonprofit organization that provides rides for needy children in his home state.

In 1992 Russell responded to an emergency call for a toddler. They were unable to save the child’s life. This profoundly affected Russell.

To process his grief, Russell accepted the suggestion of a counselor to get involved in volunteer work. When he did, this is what he discovered

“When I drove into the community, it was a world of its own. It was a lot of homes that were deplorable. And that’s really the only way I can explain them,” he says.

Jackson says he was instantly ashamed by his own comfortable lifestyle.

“All it took was the one visit,” he recalls, “and I knew I really wanted to come out and work with these folks, hand in hand, and do whatever I could to help make life a little bit easier for them.”

When social workers told him about the neighborhood children who had no way to travel to and from appointments for chemotherapy, physical therapy and even for regular checkups, Jackson started driving them there himself.

Before long this one-man operation grew into a 13-van team covering 30 counties. Though Jackson recently stepped down from a daily role in the organization he founded, he says the best part of his work has been meeting the families and witnessing firsthand so many medical transformations.

There were some who learned to speak, another who learned to walk, and others who recovered from life-threatening illnesses — even when doctors were less than hopeful.

“I saw so many lives changed, so many determined children and parents who wanted to beat the odds that were against them,” Jackson says.

I volunteer at a hospital, just to try to be of help to people during difficult times. Several months ago one of the elderly ladies that volunteer at the hospital missed her shifts for a few weeks. When I inquired as to why, I found out that she had a recurrence of cancer. It has now come back in her bones and is incurable.

She has decided to not pursue any treatment. She has stopped all chemo-therapy treatment because the cost was eating into her savings. I called her to see if I could help in any way. After having a nice conversation, we decided that I could best help by taking her out every other week on a Tuesday morning, shopping for groceries. On the alternate Tuesdays we do something different. This week we are going to hunt for a store that has a good selection of rubber stamps. (She loves those things.)

I have learned that she writes poetry, and wants to illustrate the pages with birds. She is now under Hospice care for the rest of the week and they have been so very good to her. They even “hard bound” one of her books for her, and she is thrilled.

I learned so much from the Doable Evangelism Seminar. I regularly leaf through the book (Evangelism Without Additives) just to remind myself of the simple things we can do, that can really mean a lot.

I grew up in a small town in Southern Utah, and it’s likely that if I throw out the words “jockey box” most of you won’t have a clue about what I am talking about. I know that it’s a glove compartment, but you wouldn’t know that unless I had told you or you knew someone who lived in that area of the midwest. That’s sometimes the way I feel about Christian terminology.

The town that I grew up in was about 98% Mormon and my father was rabidly anti-institutional church. For that reason, we rarely went to church. Instead, my dad would take us and we would spend our Sundays in the open wilderness. He said that was our church. We would walk the sidehills of my mother’s hometown, a town of 500 population, or we would drive to the deserts or mountains that were only a short drive away and go exploring. Many times, we would go fishing and sit alongside a placid lake talking. (Perhaps that’s one reason that I have a hard time with fishing analogies. In the end, the fish have to die in order for us to have a good meal!) My growing up experience was very different from those who were raised inside the church, and so I am often struggling with the terminology.

When my husband and I first joined a local church, I sat through almost an entire sermon on stewardship without realizing that it was about tithing. I thought the pastor was calling us to be good stewards of our faith! I thought it was a great message until my husband started talking about it. I realized then that I have a serious communication problem with the Christian vernacular.

Last week, when I was talking about the word evangelist and the way I felt when I heard the word, it was just another example of how I respond to certain words that are thrown my way. My experience was that Mormons used all the same words like redemption, savior, and God, but what they meant by those words were not always the same. Even Mormon scholars and leaders will acknowledge that their use of those terms are unique. The underlayers of their doctrine rename the words to mean something that fits within the confines of their faith. I wonder how often we do the same thing with words.

That’s why, when I am talking to other people about matters of faith, I often don’t use the Christian words to get my point across. I don’t assume that when I say “redemptive” or “savior” that they are going to hear them in the way that I am trying to convey them, and I may not use those words at all if I think they are going to be offensive. Some folks would call that watering down the faith, but I don’t believe that. I want people to understand me. It’s a kindness to be aware of the possibility of misunderstandings. You can’t always avoid misunderstandings, but you can minimize them.

Jesus spoke in a different vernacular. He used terminology and analogies and parables to symbolize the ideals of God. He spoke about the “kingdom of God,” “bread of life,” and “living water.” Those were terms that He used in an effort to free the people of His day from their religious cages. We live in different cages, but cages all the same and we need to be freed from the bonds of our words so that we can move beyond them and introduce others to the God that we love.

It’s almost like Religion has been here so long, that it’s become just another part of this world, not separated from it in any way.  This got me thinking about what it is that we (at least, those of you reading who prescribe to one religion or another) are trying to achieve.  I know that in Christianity, we’re trying to change the world (mostly by conversion, or something along those lines), and from what I can surmise about Islam, Hinduism, Jainism, Bah’ai, etc…they are too.  So why, is Bangalore, India, a society so permeated with Religion, a city which has gotten to the point that most religions hope to reach, just the same as Reno, NV, which many pastors call the most “unchurched” (whatever that means) city in the U.S., home to and famous for a ton of vices, not available in other places?  

People, I think.  

Which is exactly why Religion here in Bangalore has failed to change anything substantially.  People. Religions are “run” by people, adhered to by people, affected by people, just as Wal-Mart is.  As long as we (the Religious) operate by the same modus operandi of this world (partaking in a Religion that changes individual lives, and not communities), we’re never going to get where we want to go, which is, at least for Christians, God’s kingdom realized here on Earth..where there will be no poor, where there will be no crime, etc.  

Which leads me to think that Jesus didn’t come to start another Religion.  Yes, Religions are good and necessary and everything, and bring a great amount of relief to a great many people’s lives, in countless forms…but they can’t be the be all and end all.  Just look at Bangalore…permeated with Religion, but no different than Reno.  

What if, instead of a Religion, Jesus came to start a church (in the “Acts” sense of the word…a community…a movement)?  What if that’s how we’ll change the world?  By adhering to a community, a lifestyle, a kingdom, one that includes everyone who wants to come along for the ride?  It’s certainly naïve, and romantic, and all of that (perhaps even childish?) to think that change this big can happen, but as I’ve been reading through Matthew and Mark this trip, it seems that that’s what Jesus is telling us to do.  Change the world, and make disciples of all nations (and cultures, and lifestyles, and backgrounds, and Religions?)…through love, and nothing other than love.  

Maybe we’ve been trying too hard to make nations of all disciples, just like every other king and ruler does. Maybe it’s time to set ourselves apart from the world, intentionally.  Not through condemning them, or through our words, or anything of the sort, but through our own lives and lifestyles and communities?  I don’t know.  For now, I’ll just try my best to live a Kingdom life here, and figure out what that means along the way.  But I think that situations like those that can be found in Bangalore warrant some thought.  Is there a limit to what a Religion can do?  Does the church that Jesus started require a move beyond Religion, to be what Jesus created it to be?  Who knows?  If we love God and love each other, the rest will worry about it self, or something.

What I found out was that I did have the gift of evangelism but that it looks a lot more like servanthood. It took me some time to parse through things, but I finally came to realize that real evangelism isn’t all that much about heaven or even the threat of hell. Heaven is the reward at the end of the game, and we’re still barely approaching the second half. I think Heaven’s a great place, but it is one of those things that a lot of people have a hard time visualizing and I can’t blame them. I have a hard time visualizing it, too. Heaven is something we look forward to in the future, but are we offering anything special if our faith doesn’t offer a little something in the present?

As a wordsmith, I have come to love the word evangelist. It comes from the word evangel, which means “good news.” So, it seems so backwards to me to deliver evangelism as if it were bad news by warning folks about the perils of hell. It’s great news to discover that God loves me and wants me to live a better life and I believe that other people want to see it in action in my life. That’s the best kind of evangelism there is. People want a great life, but often don’t know how to achieve it. If I am living a life filled with joy and love, people want to know how they can get a little piece of that kind of heaven. That’s where you find my evangelism moment. In the aftermath of my actions and after I have loved you into my family, I can tell you my story and how I came to find my God and how finding Him changed me.

I think part of the reason that I finally started to embrace the term “evangelist” is because I wanted to be part of inspiring others to see what it really is. Not everyone is ready to hear the fullness of the message from someone standing on a street corner, but many are willing to experience it through love and compassion. That doesn’t mean that they can’t learn anything from the guy on the street corner, but it makes it a lot harder. The funny thing about it is that servanthood evangelizes me, too. It changes me into the kind of Christian that Jesus taught us to be, and it changes the hearts of those who have doubts about Him because there is nothing more authentic and real than love.

I am an evangelist, but I believe that God has already written His love into our DNA. In doing that, God has an advantage because there is something inside all of us that wants to be loved by Him. Whatever I do is only secondary to what God has already done. God’s the real evangelist and my job is to be the best example of what God’s love is that I can possibly be. Sometimes, I really fail at that. I get ornery and I get caught up in how I am feeling, but I keep trying to re-evangelize myself by continuing to seek God’s presence. I like the way Rob Bell put it in a video that I recently saw. He said that it’s like being out of tune with God’s music. The musician in me loves that analogy. Maybe it strikes a chord in you, too.

I don’t apologize for being an evangelist anymore. I embrace it, but I embrace it knowing that God made us all to be one each in our own way. I will never be like Billy Graham. God created Billy for his own style of evangelism, but God created me to be a messenger of a different kind.  The trick is learning what God’s method is for me and that’s going to be the tricky part for you, too.  You aren’t Billy Graham, either.  God made only one, and this generation doesn’t hear God’s music the same way the prior generations did. 

I saw so many faces. I was next to so many people. In our world here on the Peninsula, we live in proximity to many, but we are close to very few. On the bus we are forced to rub shoulders with the person next to you. On the bus we are forced to have contact with people. It is a very good thing.

There were lots of conversations all around me. Sure, plenty of people had earphones on - continuing to live in isolation — but most people smiled, greeted each other, thanked the driver, wished people a good day. It felt human. It felt like we are supposed to act this way. I observed people. I prayed behind their backs. I felt connected. I’m riding the bus as often as I can now.

(anonymous, from New Life Community Church in Burlingame, CA)

Perhaps you nor I would agree with Russert’s version of Roman Catholicism (it is in accurate and naïve to perpetuate that all RCs have an identical set of beliefs). Yet can borrow a page or two from the playbook of his life lived out. Ponder the following approaches he walked out in connecting with others regarding his faith:

• He was not programmatic with others. I am yet to meet a person who treats others with an agenda in hand or heart who is also effective at influencing them. Let’s face it – others can ‘read’ our intentions quickly. We nearly always have all good intensions when it comes to seeking to influence others toward a life of Jesus centeredness. However as we carry about a strategy toward those around us, we get in the way of what God is up to with others. You will never hear of a person telling their ‘Jesus story’ down the road with them mentioning how powerful a strategy or program was in grabbing their hearts. Such talk robs God of his glory.

• He did not try to persuade people.   God is the persuader – the one and only. He is the sole heart to heart communicator who has ever existed. If you are unclear on this point, I encourage you to chat with someone who has extensive experience in the realm of evangelism. To a person I promise you will hear stories from them of God clarifying exactly who is behind every conversion story. (We are seed flingers – he causes the harvest to occur.) If anyone tells you differently, realize you are talking with a poser, not an evangelism veteran.) Of course God calls us to action. To the same degree, of course, ours is to realize our severe limitations when it comes drawing people into God’s kingdom on our own.

• He was not suspicious of others who disagreed with him.   We can only hold onto one thing at a time. Jesus calls us to love God with our all and all and our neighbor as ourselves. It is impossible to love our neighbor hold out suspicions toward them at the same time.

So I’m getting off the freeway at McCarran in Sparks, heading to my shop in my F350, and at the end of the off-ramp there’s some homeless guy standing with a sign asking for something, like usual.  I instantly went into judging and condemning the guy in my mind, ripping him a new one for being lazy, using people…you know, my normal routine. Suddenly God sort of grabbed me by the neck and said, “Who are YOU to condemn that man?”  I’m not kidding.  It was like I got hit in the face or something. I began to think, “This guy is probably ten times the man I am, and here I am summing up his life as his judge and jury.”  I was crushed.

Then I heard God say, “Go give him some money.”  I was not in the left lane, where he was standing.  I was in the right turn lane, and there was a lot of traffic waiting for the light to turn green.  I began to think about all the reasons I couldn’t get to him right now…the traffic light could turn any minute, I’d be leaving my truck to go over to him and if the light turned, well, I’d be blocking traffic.  Excuses.  Just then the light turned green and traffic began to move. “Oh well,” I thought, feeling somewhat relieved.  I put my foot to the accelerator and, “BAM!”…the transmission blew up.  I was dead in the water, right there in traffic. Couldn’t move.  

But wait…it gets better.  Guess who helped me push my truck to the side of the road?

I kept fumbling through my pockets to grab all the cash I had as I was fumbling out loud for what to say to the man.  I think I probably just mumbled something like, “I don’t know, man…it’s just a God thing…just a God thing” as I thanked him and handed him a fistfull of bills.  

I called my office and had someone bring a flatbed to load my truck onto and hauled it to my shop.  I had them unload it in the corner of the yard where I let it sit for a couple of weeks, a visual reminder of my own pride…and the grace of God.  Cost me three grand to get that tranny rebuilt.  

Best three grand I ever spent.

I went to the gas station to fill up my car. When I was wiping down my windows, a man approached me and asked me for a couple dollars to catch the bus back to San Francisco from San Mateo. I gave him a couple dollars because it felt like something I should do. After I gave him the money, I wanted to do more. I wanted to do a “free attention give away” that we learned about in the Doable Evangelism seminar. So I did it. I just listened.

The man asked me if I was from San Luis Obispo (he had noticed the alumni border around my license plate). I told him not originally, and he began to make small talk about the weather. He mentioned one previous job he had had that paid minimum wage and was very hard - landscaping in Phoenix, AZ in the extreme heat. He said it was the best job he could find in the whole city. He then mentioned some of the hazards he had faced like finding snakes in planters.

The feeling I got from this man was that he was having a hard life, and maybe a little lonely, and needed someone to listen to him. I tried to listen and answer the questions he asked me but I felt like I could have done a better job. I have been able to notice people and pray for them, but I have not been good at starting conversations and making small talk to find out about them. I do find these situations awkward and I feel like God might have been trying to help me notice this guy and listen to him. 

We are so proud of this effort. Yeah, most of us feel we should do more. But she did it! She paid attention to someone who could use a little attention . Way to go!!

(I’m proud of New Life Community Church for being so committed to celebrating the ordinary!  They continue to find regular ways to shine the spotlight on ordinary Christians doing ordinary attempts each week.  Way to go NLCC! –Randy)

Eulah’s daughter came to visit us one time from Texas. She was one of those people who look like they’ve had a bit of rebellion in their life. I can’t explain it, but I just had that sense about her. She got so excited after our ministry because she thought it was so great. She had been shocked when Eulah, who is paralyzed on one side and can’t speak, sang the words to all the songs. She explained that Eulah had the been the wife of a pastor and she told us that my husband looked like her brother.

The last time I saw that particular daughter was about a month ago. I had talked to her earlier and told her that I was so happy that she had come and she told me that she had moved there from Texas. I expressed my joy at her being here and told her that we’d love to see her back here anytime. She attended our service that day and got so emotional during the song “People Get Ready” that she had to leave. I didn’t know why, but she left in tears.

A couple of years ago, when we had a nativity service there, we brought a plastic light-up nativity set with us. Eulah wheeled her wheelchair up to the nativity set and just took it in with her eyes. You could tell that it gave her peace just to look at it. I took her hand and stood there with her. I had a lot of moments like that with her. I can’t explain it, but I just knew how she was feeling and sometimes I would put it into words for her.

Whenever we haven’t seen Eulah for a while, we worry, but she often came in late and would shimmy her wheelchair up to the front to be closer. She would wave with her good arm and smile the loveliest smile. Eulah has a lot of spunk. If someone bumped her wheelchair, she’d let them know that that wasn’t right. It was kind of funny. We used to laugh about it.

Last month, we hadn’t seen Eulah and we started asking about her. One of the other seniors that we know told us that Eulah had had some hard times. The daughter who had just moved there from Texas had died. Her other daughter had recently lost her husband and hadn’t visited Eulah for a long time. Eulah had known that something was wrong because she didn’t pick up her laundry as usual for quite a while and it had sent her into a tailspin. That’s how I found Eulah yesterday.

She lay in her bed silent but not sleeping as I came in to speak with her. She opened her eyes, but didn’t try to speak as she might’ve in the past. I went to her and smoothed back the hair on her head and I told her I had heard about her hard times. I told her I was going to pray with her, and she looked at me. I saw a flicker of recognition in her eyes. I prayed and cried at the same time, but afterward I thought that she was thankful. I don’t know, maybe it was the other way around. Maybe I was grateful to Eulah for showing me what real strength is.

These seniors suffer a lot of losses at their age. Many of them outlive their own children. They have lost their homes, their health, and often their dignity. They cling to the small amount of love that they get from other people and it must not come very often because they cling to the small amount of kindness that we give. We don’t do a lot, but when I offer my hand to someone, I feel them cling to it. Like the lady who wheeled her chair right up to me yesterday while I was giving my message. She just wanted to hold my hand and so I just kept giving the message–one-handed.