They Still Needed the Unconditional Love of God

A Story in the West Side Church Series.

They Still Needed the Unconditional Love of God

One week during my service as a local denominational leader, I received telephone calls from two people who were working in one of our toughest churches in our roughest communities. They had decided serving that church and community was not feeding them spiritually. They wanted to serve people somewhere else.

They could not visualize the love of Jesus in the faces of people they claimed to serve.

I mourned for these young ministers. Yet I prayed God would provide another calling and open door of ministry for them. These two needed to move on because they lacked a spiritual call to serve the people in their current church and community. They could not help these people experience the unconditional love of God.

They needed to get out of the way so people who could visualize the love of Jesus in the faces of these people could serve this church and community.

After these calls, I reflected on my five years of ministry in a church in the west end of Louisville, KY, and for the people among whom I ministered. For three years we lived in the house next to the church building.

On certain days, ministry service in that context was tough. On other days, it was joyous. It fed my spirit because I could visualize the love of Jesus in the faces of the people. It was in the spiritual center of my ministry calling.

When I ponder the people in that church and community, I think of the following things.

• They robbed our house two weeks before Christmas. But they still needed the unconditional love of God.

• The police periodically chased people down the alley outside our bedroom window shooting at them. But they still needed the unconditional love of God.

• There were drug raids about every two months at the house directly across the street. But they still needed the unconditional love of God.

• My wife’s jewelry box ended up in the bedroom of the mother of the boys who robbed our house. Just two blocks away. But they still needed the unconditional love of God.

• We varied our pattern and tricked people who knew someone left our church each Sunday with the offering of mostly cash. Church offering robberies occurred periodically in the community. But they still needed the unconditional love of God.

• A tracker-trailer truck backed into our car parked on the narrow street by our house about 30 days after we bought it. But they still needed the unconditional love of God.

• The teenage boys who robbed our house were the younger brothers of the older teens who stole our church sound system. But they still needed the unconditional love of God.

• Later a teenage girl who recently got her driver’s license leaned over to pick up something while driving down our street and broadsided our same recently purchased car. But she still needed the unconditional love of God.

• The guy who kept knocking on our door at two and three o’clock in the morning demanding to use our telephone to call the FBI to find out who was following him, got arrested when he “cold-cocked” someone in a bar. But he still needed the unconditional love of God.

• A deacon’s wife would call our home telephone number dozens of times each day but hang up before we could answer. She did the same to the home numbers of the church secretary and custodian. She finally got professional counseling when we figured out who was doing it. But she still needed the unconditional love of God.

• Two teenage girls in the church less than 15 years old had “back alley” abortions. But they still needed the unconditional love of God.

• Two guys cornered me in my office in the church one day and started making demands and threatening violence. Fortunately, two teenage boys were doing landscaping work around the church and showed up behind them with shovels. They backed away. Later more than a mile away I saw these two guys stopped on the street by a police officer. But they still needed the unconditional love of God.

• In the middle of a deacons meeting my chairperson and vice chairperson disagreed so violently that they stood, cocked their fists, and were about to start fighting until I stood between them. But they still needed the unconditional love of God.

• A sixteen-year-old girl who was seven months pregnant walked more than a mile in 20-degree weather without a coat to get to our church because she heard we could give her food. The father of her baby had abandoned her. She still needed the unconditional love of God.

• Vacation Bible School was always in the evenings. A few women who taught in VBS said they would be there to lead their class if their husbands drank enough beer after work to fall asleep on the couch. They still needed the unconditional love of God.

It is important to respond to the call of God on your life. Along the way I hope those called to serve in the tough places will readily step forward as they visualize the love of Jesus in the faces of people needing Christ-like compassion.

The two young ministers who called me ended up in easier places of service. I pray they served well and will long-term remember the lessons they learned in their earlier setting.

I hope as they reflect on their earlier ministry setting, they will eventually realize those people still needed the unconditional love of God.