The Greatest Threat.

A few weeks ago a reporter from MSNBC asked me, "What is the biggest threat ahead of your community...your people?"

"Despair," I said.

We'll get through the short-term crisis of this economic downturn, I said. In our city of 55,000 people the actual unemployment rate is probably above 20%. Our folks have been through economic recessions before, and they are pretty resilient. They are creative and they'll come back.

Human beings have a pretty amazing capacity to come through a short-term crisis. The soldiers under fire in a Baghdad neighborhood react with amazing resourcefulness. The family with a very sick young child pulls together and gets through the crisis.

When thngs can get really tough, though, is after the crisis passes or first hits. it's the long haul that can wear a military unit down...or a family...or a marriage...or a community.

"We'll get through the first stages of the crisis okay," I said, "but I worry about people surrendering to despair when the challenges linger for months. When that great job doesn't come back...or when some changes we thought were going to be temporary look like they might become temporary."

Yesterday I got a phone call from a buddy: after months of searching he had just received a job offer. The application process, the interviews and all, had gone on for weeks. The job was his! I could hear the relief in his voice. Today I found out another friend didn't get the job they had been hoping for, interviewing for, and I know this must feel like a very, very tough Friday. A member of the family told me, after hearing the news, that God is good...God is faithful...and there is another job out there.

We are focused on helping one another through the crisis. I find myself wondering about the long term.

I keep thinking about the empty tomb of Easter. I keep thinking about the two men traveling to the town of Emmaus, after they had heard Jesus had been nailed to a cross and buried in the ground. "But we had hoped..." they said to a stranger (who turned out to the risen Christ).

Despair is like a dog that prowls the neighborhood. Always ready to dig its teeth into us. But we are going through this together. And we have a God whose resurrection power shows up in all sorts of ways.

Those People Love!

I have a place.

It's a little coffee shop on East Jackson. Another coffee shop out on highway 120 used to be my place to sit, outline a sermon, have a cup of coffee and breathe. But the old place closed up. The new shop is called Heavenly Brew. It's in a little, old house that used to be a florist shop.

HB is just right. Safe. Cozy. They know my name...and they know I like warmed-up 2% milk with my baked oatmeal.

I have a place.

This morning I noticed a woman noticing me. She was sitting with her college-age daughter, having a conversation, and as they got up to go she approached me. Held out her hand. Said, "Don't I know you...you're the pastor at the church?" I nodded and introduced myself. Told her, yes, that I was down the street at Trinity United Methodist.

She told me she lives a few blocks from Trinity. The woman belongs to a small church in Goshen. But she has slipped into Trinity a couple of times for worship or a class or a women's ministry thing.

Her face lit up. "Oh, that church!" she said. "There is great stuff going on, and the people are so welcoming...so loving! As soon as I walked in I could tell they cared...loved one another. And I felt so welcome."

Before the woman left the shop we shook hands. She threw her arms open wide and said, "Those people know how to love!"

I'll tell our people that, this weekend. Remind them about what others see and we may take for granted.

I have a place.

I think everyone wants to have a place -and often they are looking to the church to be just that place.