To the Ragamuffins Alike

The church is not a Sunday morning, Wednesday evening event. The church is community. It is what gathers on Monday mornings for prayer and Thursday evening for fellowship dinners. It is what meets in coffee shops, street corners and living rooms. The church is what goes out of their way to reach others. The church does not have an agenda, but they have a Guide. The church may have a building to gather in, but the church is mobile, traveling by foot, trains, bicycles and backs of donkeys. 

The church is full of Samuels, dedicated from birth to the building of the Kingdom. There are the Sauls to Pauls, the tax collectors willing to drop everything to follow, the Priscillas and Aquilas always having opened doors, the Tabithas of a town where others cannot imagine life without her. The church is the people.

I arrived in Vegas six days ago ecstatic to be home. Sunday evening I attended the church I attended during my DTS this past fall. Grace City, the church, is filled with the ragamuffins of Vegas. It is a place of freedom, a small room filled with life. I was touched during greeting time, as in physically touched; forget the informal handshakes and table talk, these people hug you, and I mean the real deal Grandma style hugs that are deep, full and intimate. Strangers who desire to bridge the gap into family. 

It was in worship I was reminded again of what worship is. I was in awe of the freedom to jump and dance again, to clap and sing loudly again, unashamed with the fact I cannot carry a tune in a bucket. There were those speaking in tongues, some with their eyes open, some with their eyes closed. Some were sitting, some still talking with others and some were on their knees. Freedom. It is for freedom Christ came, lived, died, and lives again. Freedom.

Monday morning I attended a prayer group with Grace City church. The church currently has 10 interns living at the YWAM Las Vegas base for the summer and a team of seven from Indiana who were here for the week, also living at the YWAM base. There was a room full of people on a Monday morning gathered to lift their voices and intercede on behalf of strangers. We were praising God for things He had done this week, including salvation from a block party this past Saturday and salvation in church Sunday evening. We were praising God for healing and encouraging encounters with strangers. We were praying for current events in the new, such as ISIS. Then we prayed for those we want to give up on, throw the towel in on and deem them unchangeable, starting with those in our families. We, as a body of brothers and sisters, gathered around those who had siblings in need of prayer, and then around those who needed prayer for parents or spouses. 

There was freedom to be broken and vulnerable. There was no place for judgement, pride and condemnation because the space was imbued with the presence of God. In the presence of God there is only room for love, grace and redemption.

One of my favorite authors, Shane Claiborne, said in his book Irresistible Revolution, “And I think that's what our world is desperately in need of - lovers, people who are building deep, genuine relationships with fellow stragglers along the way, and who actually know the faces of the people behind the issues they are concerned about.” 

Through the past six days I have been reminded of what it is to be a straggler in need of prayer, and to be the straggler being crumbled under the immense grace of God in a room full of fellow stragglers. To the ragamuffins, the stragglers, the mess-ups and the outcasts, we are the church, we are the body, unified under the cross, celebrating in the freedom of the resurrection.