Seeking places where orthodoxy becomes adventure
It feels a little radical, and sometimes a little dangerous, admitted Gay Green-Cardin, the pastor of Asbury UMC in Jessup. But, if it’s done right, everyday-church is supposed to make your heart beat a little faster.
Since then, attendance has leveled out to an average of 130, giving has risen from $1,000 to $3,000 a week and the church is on target for paying its full apportionments.
The reason for this growth is not a mystery. “I invited people,” said the new lay pastor, who served several years as the Annapolis District lay leader and dean of the School of Faith and Light.
A pharmaceutical saleswoman, Green-Cardin learned the importance of talking and listening. “All my life I’ve been in sales,” she said. “But telling people the Good News is the best sale I could ever make. God wants me to be a spokesperson for the love of Jesus. This is my calling. I never felt so refreshed; my job has never been so rewarding.”
Everywhere Green-Cardin goes, from the local 7-11 convenience store to area homes, she invites people to church. Her energy is contagious. Church members and visitors alike are now inviting their friends to Bible study and worship.
Morale at many small churches is down, Green-Cardin said. “We have to get people ignited. I tell everyone, ‘don’t stay inside the church. Go out and tell other people.’ … The church is coming to life.”
At Capitol Hill UMC there is a quieter radical thing unfolding. Successful, intelligent, affluent Washingtonians are meeting with those who wander the city’s streets without a home and for whom a used T-shirt and a meatloaf lunch is a gift. But this meeting is not about charity, or even mission. The group is studying the Bible together and learning about Christ from one another.
One morning in August, Tom, who spends many nights in his wheelchair on the church’s stoop, was lying on the cement, trying to get his socks on before attending Sunday school.
One of the church members stooped to help him, while another went to fetch some water to wash away the mess that another homeless overnight visitor had left on the church’s sidewalk behind some bushes.
Struggling to dress a confused man whose pain made him cry out and washing waste off the pavement, is hardly how most United Methodists begin Sunday School.
It’s messy, but then life often is. At Capitol Hill, they meet needs first. And, in these needs, they sometimes discover the presence of God.
During the Sunday School class, in a small chapel, a man named Lester sat down very close to me in a pew. As he leaned forward to rest his head, I noticed specks of blood and tiny red bugs on the back of his shirt.
When Lester raised his head to share his thoughts on living a resurrection life, I didn’t understand some of the words he mumbled. But I did find myself caring intensely about what he thought about God.
Moment by moment, through their relationships, that’s what the people at Capitol Hill teach you. It feels radical, a bit like a daring adventure, a leap of faith into an almost heretically bold way of being.
But then, as coffee and conversation is shared, you realize it’s really just the Gospel being lived out. Amid mess and chaos, there is deep listening and faith, and authentic love unfolding.
The writer G.K. Chesterton said, “There are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally. It may be conceded to the mathematician that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one.”
It’s this kind of miracle math that allows Jesus to feed the multitudes with a few loaves of bread and some fish. It’s also what allows people — all the people — at Capitol Hill and Asbury UMCs and beyond to live resurrection lives.
Login/Register to leave comment