Lord, Save Us from your Followers

I had the distinct pleasure last night of watching a film by Dan Merchant called ‘Lord, Save Us From Your Followers’. It is a documentary of his travels around the United States trying to dialog with people about christians and Christianity. His perspectives were nothing new, and the ideas he represents are not new to the Christian community as a whole; however, it was astounding to me how fundamentally blind many of the christian people he interacted with were to the world at large.

Those christians that were clearly engaged in the culture and were making a difference were the ones that were getting their hands dirty. Here in Portland, there is a ministry Mr. Merchant highlights called ‘Bridgetown Ministries’ that perform ‘Night Strikes’ under the Burnside bridge – a place where a significant number of destitute people spend their time because the Portland Rescue Mission, the Union Gospel Mission and the Salvation Army are all located proximal to the area, and the bridge itself provides shelter from the weather. Being a ‘Christian Ministry’, it would be easy to assume that these ‘Night Strikes’ are filled with prosletyzing and preaching. This is not the case – the ministry provides hair cuts, clothing and most striking of all is the foot washing. The voluteers come and provide the homeless with a hands on foot washing – just like Jesus did with his 12 disciples that lived, breathed, and ate with Him when He lived on this earth in human form. What is even more surprising is that one of the volunteers is quoted as saying the foot washing is difficult for her not because it is dirty, or smelly or gross – but because she has to wear protective gloves. She was homeless and was treated as untouchable by people she interacted with and she feels that using the protective gloves enforces that feeling some homeless have of being ‘untouchable’. Wow.

For those of you out there that are christian – I am not going to try to tell you that what you are doing is wrong, but if all you are doing is making sure your bills are paid and your stomach is full you aren’t following Jesus. Try getting dirty in the streets with the destitute and you will find yourself closer to God than you could ever be anywhere else.