Church Space

Excerpts from Welcome to 'My-Space' by Joshua Ross at NewWineskins

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In October of 2007, the leaders at Southwest Central Church (SWC) chose to take a cookout outside of the city gates (the church property) and to enter into a sun-deprived courtyard at the Louvre.

The apartment manager was surprisingly enthusiastic about our desire to “hang out” with her residents. She had one suggestion—she wanted us to arrange the cookout anytime but the heaviest drinking times, Saturday to Sunday night. In her mind, the thought of mingling church folks (those who are supposed to have it together) with beer drinkers was embarrassing. Our church chose Sunday afternoon. We would trust our people to make their own decisions if an ice cold beverage was offered their way.

I wish I could write that we entered into this experience with no fear, only love and conviction. That would be far short of the truth. Nervousness and apprehension gave birth to low expectations. At SWC, we are like most churches; we are attached to church space. We find it easy to invite people to enter into our territory where home field advantage is appreciated and desired. Stepping on to someone else’s turf means that one must relinquish power, control, and every hint of manipulation. Possibly unknowingly, we have replaced the imperative in the Great Commission “Go” with “Come.” We seem to be content with playing the “Jesus game” on our own turf.
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Over the next two hours, we stepped onto the turf of our nearest neighbors and we made friends. We didn’t enter with an agenda, but only with a craving to join our fellow human beings on a journey in life. Over three-hundred and fifty hamburgers and hotdogs were grilled, yet that was only a foretaste of what God did among us.

We walked around the complex, inviting bystanders to come and join our feast. I knocked on the door of José. We shook hands and had small talk. Small talk was how I figured out how much English he knew, and I already knew how little Spanish I know!

Although, I easily passed high school Spanish, I can’t really speak Spanish. I was grateful that José was able to speak broken English. Within the first five minutes, I learned that he had moved to the United States from Guatemala.

Back home, he was hunted by drug lords. Unable to find him, they put bullets into his mother. José had left a life of utter darkness and emptiness—running from enemies, drugs, alcohol, and gang activity—in search of something new.

He held his young daughter who was salvaging the last few crumbs from a Doritos bag. José asked, “Why are you here anyways?”

“Because of Jesus,” I said.
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