Today, We'll be making an offer on a second house, 1325 Chase Ave. It's set up for community living to the hilt! We'd have it chocked full of folks, with plenty of help on all the repairs from JP, Danielmatt, and Zach. And Danielmatt is actually quite handy!
it is my hearts desire to acquire a house like this one: close to our former funeral home, large, with lots of rooms, subdivided for community living with proper privacies for our young married and newly pregnant couples...
We've been looking at a much "nicer" (needs less work) house, but it's 14 houses away and located smack dab on the corner where there have been gunshots this month (the night I heard a bullet whizz overhead). Our young ladies don't cross the street alone, in this neighborhood... I don't feel good moving them onto the corner of Chambers and ApJones St.
Problem? Yep. There are always miracles waiting to happen. 1325 Chase costs a lot more than we can easily raise, I think. I mean, this is just my family doing this. It's not an "official" thing. We're just christians who're driven by...Jesus...the Scriptures...the Prophets...Love...to share life and live Love in this world in the city... What? To me, it's just the basic outworking of a life with JEsus... nothing secret or smart or sophisticated, there.
That's the hard part. This is so simple, and people keep telling me it's "amazing" and "brave" and "insane", but it's none of those things. It's just simply living after Christ. he did like this. he did it more. He did it better. He loved deeper... we're just little feet on big prints, often messing up the tracks. That's all...
Go for it man... do you know how many people have told me we're insane for not taking a kushy (spell???) $40,000 a year pastor job at a mega- church. Apparently, doing what God has called us to do in this generation... (like follow Him where He leads us... whether northside, maineville or like some of my bro's in springfield, IL or on the eastcoast...) is something amazing. I think we're getting starved for real called-out-ones in the church... (sorry I don't like to ramble on my horse, but it's so much fun) ...starved for people who will get knee-deep in the lives of those around us. Just the other day someone said "I'm sorry that you guys don't have a "SHARE A MEAL" program at your church so that corrie won't have to cook all your dinners." Well guess what church! WE DON'T NEED ONE... our little community HAS been feeding us during the first 2 weeks of Ezekiel's birth AND we didn't have to ask... Taking care of one another flows out of the heart NOT out of program. If we want to take care of each other, we will. If we're only focused on self, we won't. Thank goodness JEsus left His comfort-zone for me... cuz I'd be sunk. Corrie and I aren't "brave" for working part-time jobs and trusting God to take care of the rest... Lew and Judy aren't brave... We're just resting in the arms of a loving father who has the cattle on a thousand hills, who asks us to seek or knock cuz He's waiting, who wants us to quit being luke-warm and GET FIRED UP for something more than the Bengals (ooops too far???). Love ya man... thanks for being a partner in the sludge.
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