We're getting ready to start a second worship gathering in two weeks... this one back across downtown from where we meet now, in the Lucky Lab pub on Hawthorne. Our hope is that, even as we draw people from all over the city to be part of evergreen, having two worship gatherings will help us to localize a bit more- develop more of a relationship with our host neighborhoods...
To that end, we did some walking and praying around the neighborhood, up and down Hawthorne today.
It's a surprisingly beautiful day here in Portland, so a good day to walk, and to pray. We met at the Hawthorne lab, divided into a number of groups, each with a map highlighted to show a section of the neighborhood to walk through and pray. I got the section that covers the main part of Hawthorne, from 30th on up to 39th.
As we walked, I started praying for the businesses we walked by and the hypothetical customers I pictured inside. For hope for those inside Claudia's Bar, for those who owned the Spring Market to come to know Jesus, for those inside Crossroads Music to be broken free...
I eat often at places like the Taco Del Mar there, the Pho' Van... I prayed for good connections in those places.
There are a number of explicitly pagan businesses up and down the blvd, peddling a lot of stuff. Some harmless, some less so. I prayed for those places.
But after a bit, I realized- it was a beautiful day with the sidewalks just packed. And I was walking past people, praying for businesses. So, gear change one: I just started actually looking at all the people I was passing (which could make a pretty good hobby in a town like Portland), and started praying.
I prayed that evergreen could be a community for this person, could meet that person where they were, could love this one and serve that one... I went on for awhile, but then realized...
I was praying for us, not for the people I was looking at. So gear change two: I started praying for the people themselves.
God, please... praying for those who looked distressed, for those who looked angry, for those whom Jesus compared to a coin a woman was desperately looking for, a sheep the shepherd was searching for, a son in a far off country.
And that's when God spoke to me.
There's a line of thinking that goes this way: I don't really pray. If God wants to do something He will, and if He isn’t moved by the pain around us, He probably isn’t going to do anything just because I ask.
I don't think it would be too strong to say I hate that way of thinking. It completely misses the point. Prayer isn't a method of changing God, getting God to care about what we care about... It's the exact opposite. It's a method of changing me, getting me to care about what HE cares about.
How much do I care for that about which I am unwilling to pray, to ask, to bang on the door? It's not that God doesn't care and so doesn't answer- it's that He does care and wants us to do so as well- and He knows that when we are willing to ask, and ask and ask... we'll have begun to care the way He does. And more, we'll be moved by caring to act.
So... God spoke to me. He spoke to me about my lack of prayer for the people of Portland, my lack of crying out to Him on their behalf, my lack of even the modicum of concern that troubles itself with the actions of attention and presence and prayer in any regular way...
I ended the walk humbled, grateful for a couple of folks I had met, praying simply that God would help our community to be a blessing to the people I had shared space with today, committed to crying out to God for this great city in which He's placed our community and allowed us to thrive.
God, please...
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