Radical Kindness for Your Community: Stephen Viars

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And you can sign up in the show notes or on familylife.com slash coming soon. We hope you'll join us. You know, one of the things I love about community ministry is that it's often that I have to build something new.

It's more about using what I already have to meet a need. I've been in Lafayette at Faith Church for 36 years, and the gentleman that hired me was named Bill Goode, my predecessor. And I served as his associate for eight years, and then we made a leadership transition 28 years ago. When I went to Faith, they had just built a new building, and it was very, very nice, brand new. The Red Cross contacted us since we're so near the interstate and said, could we use your church as a disaster shelter, especially in Indiana for snow emergencies? We said yes, and sure enough, that first winter had a terrible snowstorm.

They had to close I-65. People are coming off of the interstates, pouring into our building, obviously with snow and slush and all that kind of stuff, getting tracked all over the place. And we're quickly setting up cots. It's the first time we've ever done it and trying to get people situated for the night, trying to figure out food and just all that sort of thing. So pretty soon, the brand new gym is filled with cots.

The Sunday school classrooms are filled with cots, and there are more and more people coming in. So we actually had to talk about, are we going to have to shut this shelter down? And it's like, we can't do that. I mean, it's dangerous.

We got to get these people off of the interstate. And so the executive director of the Red Cross and Pastor Goude, my predecessor, who at that point was an elderly man, and I were standing right at the entrance to the auditorium, the sanctuary. It had brand new padded pews.

It still smelled new. The executive director of the Red Cross looked in there and she said, is there any way we could allow people just to come in and sleep on those padded pews? And I'll never forget what Pastor Goude said. He said, well, this place sleeps seven hundred on Sunday mornings.

Why can't it sleep whatever it needs to sleep on Saturday night? Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Shelby Abbott and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson.

You can find us at familylifetoday.com. This is Family Life Today. Oh, I know when I grew up with, you know, my single mom took me to church, the sanctuary was untouchable. Absolutely.

You couldn't take a glass of water in there. That's right. Most pastors, it's a place they're very careful about.

It's not used for that. And I mean, your heart is his heart, is Jesus' heart. And by the way, if you don't know who we're talking to, we're talking to Steve Byers again about, you know, loving your community. And this is one example of using your church building. And here's the thing, as I hear you saying that again, Steve, I'm thinking it's the same should be true of our houses. Absolutely. Because we can do the same thing with our house.

Absolutely. The carpet, you know, even take off your shoes, which I get. But it's like, I don't want people coming to my house messing up my sanctuary. Wait, are you saying this about even cars?

So if I might nick a car or something? Can we talk about something else? You know, it's funny that you mentioned that because the story I just told you about the snow disaster, we were new to working with the Red Cross. And so I didn't know how it all worked. And so there was a family that came in and they had a little baby.

And I said, there's no way we're going to have them stay at a shelter. So very quickly, I called my wife and I said, hey, honey, listen, do you mind if I just bring, I don't know them, but I want to offer them to just come over to our house and stay. And so, surely enough, we did that. I found out later that was really against Red Cross protocol, but I didn't know the difference. What's interesting is that baby now has grown up as a young adult and that baby came to our church and introduced herself to me. And so to make that whole circle was just absolutely fascinating. But you're right, it's true of our churches, but it's also true of our homes. It's true of whatever resources the Lord may have entrusted to us.

How can I meet a need? Our first Easter in seminary, we went to seminary in Southern California, we were assigned by our seminary to a ministry team at a church. And we ended up at a very conservative suit and tie.

I mean, if you know us, it's like, wow, this is our M.O., but that's where we were. And we're sitting there and it's Easter Sunday. And I'll never forget, I look as this guy walks in and sits beside Ann and I shouldn't have judged, but I thought this guy woke up on the streets of San Bernardino. It's Easter, he thought I should be in church.

He just looked like the shovel guy, you know, t-shirt, the whole thing. And, you know, there's a part early in the service, hey, turn and say hi to whoever's sitting beside you. I see Ann say hi to this guy. She turns back to me and she goes, hey, this guy's coming to our house for lunch. Of course.

I'm like, of course she is. And guess what? That guy moved in with us.

Wow. Jim moved in. He was homeless, just like I thought. We've shared this story before, as our listeners may remember. But I mean, what a beautiful way to say, that's why we had an apartment we rented. That's why we had it. It wasn't just for us.

It was to extend to the community to say, how can we, and we ended up reaching him and sort of set him on his way as he moved on to a job. You know, though, I think we were 21 and 24 at that time. And it's interesting how then we were so open handed. But then you get older and you get nicer things and you become more aware of what could have happened in that situation. I think we need to be smart and wise.

But I also, I don't want to lose that heart of having the eyes of Jesus to see people and to love them and to offer up the things that we have. I think the older we get, sometimes we become more closed handed. I mean, I love your, you said it the first day and it's early in your book, say yes, unless you absolutely have to say no. What a way to live.

Say yes. And I think you're right. And that I do fear that as we get older, we can become more cynical. We've been fooled. We've been lied to.

We've been hurt. And one of my prayers for myself and for our church family is that we're just not going to become cynical. I would much rather get to heaven and find out that I had been duped where someone told me a story that turned out not to be true and I helped them and maybe I shouldn't have. I would much rather have Jesus say that to me than for him to say, I sent somebody to you that had a legitimate need and in your cynicism, you judged that person wrongly and did not love them the way you should have. And so many times we don't know. And I appreciate what you just said. We don't want to be foolish or risky. I understand that in this culture, but boy, if we're so close handed that we will not share that, like you said, Dave, just say no, say no, say no. We're going to miss ministry opportunities.

How do we keep from becoming cynical? You know, it just seems like the Lord is constantly providing these opportunities and to find joy in the opportunity. It's fun. Serving Jesus is fun.

Loving people are fun. Yes. And so to try to find the joy of Christ in the next ministry opportunity and something else, I know this, that if the community sees the church as a place that will say yes, they'll keep asking. Well, I found it interesting at lunch because you said the community called your church to see if you wanted to buy something. Yeah, our mayor. I love our mayor. It's your mayor and your good friends. We are good friends and he loves this community and he knows we do. I have a deal with the mayor that if you need something, just call us unless it's illegal or immoral.

The answer is yes. And I'm going to tell you another story before I tell you the story you just referenced. But the mayor called me once and he said, look, we have a building that the city owns. It's a storage building downtown and it's dilapidated. It's falling in.

We're afraid someone's going to get hurt. But our city budget for that kind of project is out for this year. We need somebody to come tear this building down. Will faith come tear down this building for us? And I said, Mayor, we're Baptists. If we're good at anything, it's tearing stuff down. And so, of course, we're going to tear down the building.

I made a mistake. I learned a lesson in ministry because what I did, I just told our congregation, hey, the city needs us to tear a building down. Please go sign up at the welcome center if you could come. We had so many people sign up because young people love this kind of stuff.

I mean, everybody does, but young people, they don't want to be. I'm at the church that's mad about this. I'm at the church of things for better.

No, no, no. They love making a difference. They love doing what Jesus said we should do. So we had so many people sign up that I actually had to call some people and say, listen, thank you for volunteering.

We can't have you there because it would be dead. We had to un-volunteer some people out of safety. And then I found out later that a young married guy, they lived in an apartment. They had just gotten married. He had signed up and then went to the store and bought his first sledgehammer.

They had no place to store it. So he's got a sledgehammer in the living room getting ready to go tear the building down for the city. And then Pastor Viers calls him and tells him he can't serve.

I mean, what a terrible thing, right? But my point is, I want our mayor to know, if you got a need, just call us. The answer is yes. That's funny, the mayor calls and he says, hey, what about the cooler keg bar? By this time we had two community centers, one on the east side of town, one on the west side of town. So the mayor said, what about the cooler keg bar? Now, anybody in Lafayette who's been there a long time, they know what the cooler keg bar is. It was a working man's tavern. A lot of people from Purdue University used to go there for lunch because they were known for pork tenderloins. It was just a great working man's bar. But when the interstates came to town, other restaurants are built, et cetera, et cetera. Finally, the cooler keg bar, because it's in the north and it's at a really bad part of town, it went down, it went bankrupt, it went back to the city for back taxes. So the mayor said, would faith buy the cooler keg bar?

We bought the cooler keg bar from the city of Lafayette for $1. And frankly, we overpaid. The roof was falling in, the windows were broken out.

They were honest, there were rats in the basement of this building as big as my shoe. But with help from the city and from Subaru Indiana Automotive, the car plant there in town, and from funding from our church, we tore that bar down. We built a neighborhood park. And then there were four city lots that came with the dollar deal right across the street. And we were able to build a little neighborhood community center called the Hartford Hub. And people can go online if they want to see what the building looks like. Because the architect did a great job of making it blend right in with the neighborhood. So it went from being a neighborhood eyesore to being a neighborhood asset. And anywhere Jesus goes, that's what's going to happen.

The children that live in this part of town are 82% of them from single-parent homes. And so what happens at the Hartford Hub, after school and on weekends, they come. And just members of our church, especially Purdue students, just come and just love on them. Just love on them. Find out how their day went, feed them a snack, help them with their homework, help them get ready for their spelling test or whatever it might be.

And just spend time with them. It's amazing how these young kids, and many of them are from minority families. And because the north end is the highest concentration of ethnic diversity anywhere in our town. And I do believe the Church of Jesus Christ ought to be a leader in racial reconciliation. And so that's why we love being down there.

But the kids just gravitate to anybody who will show them any love, any kind of attention. And so we had an elderly woman from the church, not long after the Hartford Hub was built. She came to me and she said, Steve, do you think the kids at the Hartford Hub would like to learn how to sew? And at first I didn't even know she was talking, but I didn't know that people still, like on a Singer sewing machine, you know, those things.

I didn't know anybody did that anymore. And then when I figured out what she was asking me, it's one of those pastoral moments where I know I'm not supposed to lie. But if I tell you the truth, that's not, so what I said was, I said, well, I don't know, because I didn't want to say no, they wouldn't want to sew.

So I just said, I don't know. So she lugs her Singer sewing machine down to the Hartford Hub. She's an elderly Caucasian woman. And pretty soon I start getting pictures from the Hartford Hub that people are sending me of this woman being surrounded by minority children, just eating out of her hands. And the next thing I know, the kids are at the sewing machine. They're making little gifts that they're going to be able to sew and then take home to their moms.

That's what community ministry looks like. This woman didn't invest additional money. She'd be the first one to tell you she's not going to sing a solo on Sunday. There's a lot of public things she would never do, but she knew how to sew and she knew how to love. And she went down there totally out of her comfort zone.

She went down there and just loved on those kids a little bit and had them eating right out of her hand. That's what loving your community looks like. Yeah, you know, I mean, it's such a beautiful story because we've said so many times. I know.

I appreciate you probably have to when people say, I don't know where God wants me to serve. It's an easy answer. What's in your heart? What keeps you up at night? What are you passionate about?

What's in your hand? She was gifted as a sower. That's right. Who would have thought? I know who didn't think.

And you know, shame on me, by the way. Yeah. Yeah, I preach that sermon too.

Yeah. But when that woman asked me that question, I didn't connect it the way I should have because I didn't believe it would happen. I did not believe it would happen. Here's what I want to ask you. Most mayors of cities, if they get a call from a pastor or a Christian family, they're not excited about that call. They think they're in trouble.

That's right. They're standing up for something that they disagree with. You've cultivated a relationship where the mayor's calling you.

How did that happen? Well, I think it just starts by letting the community know we're here to love you and we're here to meet needs. The church is not, what can we do to make our lives better? What can we do to pour all of our resources into us? We want to try to pour our resources, and people notice that.

And by the way, we're not trying to get them to notice us. We want them to know our God. Let your light so shine among men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. Our Father is the giver of good gifts. He gave us His Son, Jesus. He gives us all that we need for life and godliness.

And so the church should not be known as being stingy. And so I want our community leaders to know that we want to serve them. But what's amazing is then it starts turning into collaborative partnerships. And we were talking earlier about the skate park. Well, we built that skate park 17 years ago.

We've had a lot of fun with the skateboarders. But we're in the process of building a new addition to that community center for some athletic training that's going right on top of the old skate park. So we had to dismantle it. Well, we decided as part of the construction we're doing right now that we were going to designate $200,000 to build a new skate park.

Because we didn't want to take the old one apart without building a new one. We had an input meeting with the skateboarders again and heard what they were thinking because that sport has really changed now. And so they're going now to concrete ramps and all that sort of thing. But I called the mayor and I said, hey, listen, we're getting ready to, as you know, we're relocating the skate park. We're going to build a new one. We've got $200,000. But I said to him, you know what would be better than a $200,000 skate park?

Would be a $400,000 skate park. Because, you know, Faith has been carrying the insurance bills, the maintenance and all this for the last 17 years on behalf of our city. How about this time if Faith puts $200,000 in, but the city puts $200,000 in? And he said, well, let me go to the city council and we'll find out. Sure enough, he came back and said the city will give Faith, no strings attached, $200,000 to add and double the size of the skate park you were envisioning.

Then I said, great. And so then I went to the county commissioners and I said, listen, the city and Faith is getting ready to build a skate park, $400,000, that's a pretty nice skate park. But you know what would be better than a $400,000 skate park would be a $600,000 skate park.

And it's interesting, in the car ride over today, I received a phone call from that county commissioner who said that was just passed in their budget. And so now we're going to be able to build a $600,000 skate park with a third of the money coming from our church, a third of the money coming from the city, a third of it coming from the county, it'll be built on our site. And by God's grace, and hopefully for his glory, we're going to have a beautiful, professional-grade skate park. That's going to be awesome. But you know what would be better than a $600,000 skate park?

An $800,000. Oh, absolutely. If there's anybody listening who wants to make this story better, we will add it to the mix. Let me ask you, Steve, because we've had three inspiring days with you.

If you haven't listened to our previous two days, go back and listen to those. Where do we start? I think our hearts can, I feel like the Holy Spirit's nudging us and there's a part— Moms and dads and families are like— How do we start as a family? Like we're just one family or maybe I'm just a single mom.

What can I do? Part of it is get to know your neighbors. The automatic garage door opener is one of the worst inventions in the history of man.

Yeah. And I'm joking, but you know, it's just amazing. We just, we drive home, we open the door, we're in the house. And it's amazing how often we don't even know our neighbors. So maybe it just starts by inviting a neighbor over for— And it doesn't have to be a lavish meal.

You know, it could be a glass of ice. It's time. It's really just about time. And then finding needs. Maybe it's a time for being sure that the kids in the neighborhood have the school supplies they need. Or maybe it's being sure that they've got coats for winter or just any of those kinds of needs.

Sometimes it's not even anything material. Just saying to somebody, could I pray with you about that? That can be such a powerful question to a neighbor of, boy, I know you're struggling with this. Do you mind if I, can we pray about that? And I've asked people that lots of times.

I don't think I've ever had anybody tell me no. And then sometimes there may be a project that needs to be organized in that neighborhood. And so the way that you're helping, the way that you're serving is by organizing. You know, let's have a Friday night dinner where we bring in soup so all the moms don't have to make dinner on Friday night.

Just whatever the need might be in that neighborhood. So we're not focusing all of our time and our resources on ourself. That selfishness is boring.

It really is. Loving others brings joy. I hope no one will say, boy, Jesus really jammed us up with all these commands. Now I have to love God and love others.

He did that because he loves us. And living that way produces incredible joy and satisfaction and fulfillment. I would say the same thing to churches. I don't think that first and foremost, it's a matter of, well, you have to go out and build a community center or you have to have resources.

A lot of times it's just using the resources you already have. Churches, generally speaking, have rooms. And those rooms are available throughout the week. What is a need that could be met in this neighborhood by letting that room be used? We've got a nursery.

We've got single moms in our neighborhood who need infant care. The church can figure that out. Now I hope the church wouldn't say, well, but she shouldn't be a single mom.

Can we get off of our judgmental high horse? And if we're against abortion, then we better be doing everything we possibly can to help that mom keep her baby and then provide whatever resources she needs at the time and just to love her. I don't need to know the story of how the baby was conceived unless you want to tell me that.

That's not my concern. My concern is how can I love you and how can I love your little baby? How can I help you be the kind of mom that God wants you to be? Again, churches have nurseries. Moms need childcare. If we can't connect those dots, I have to wonder, is the Holy Spirit inside of us? Because the Holy Spirit's smart.

He could help us connect those dots. Many churches have some kind of an athletic field. Don't let that be just for the church. Let that be for the community. Figure out a way to have community recreation.

Let it be available for other people. We just have to share what we have. And it's amazing how once we start seeing people come to Christ like that, then it just becomes this flywheel of excitement.

And all of a sudden, church members are saying, you know what? I actually have some money. We could do this.

We could do that. And pretty soon, another piece of property is being bought, another building is being, and then it's not unusual for people in the community. Money follows vision.

It just does. And God will direct that to happen. And that's what the Lord has chosen to do with us is just to provide all sorts of resources as we've tried to love our community. And I'm just thinking, like, this would be a great conversation to have as a family. Maybe you listen to the episodes together or parts of it. But to sit down with your family and say, how could we impact our community?

What would this look like for us as a family? Because kids are bored. Yeah, that's right. They're pouring their time into social media and the things that really, they're bored. And I'm seeing it, even my grandkids, you give them something that's risky, that's a challenge, that could be out of their comfort zone, that they need the Holy Spirit and God to kind of give them the courage to walk this path.

That will light our kids up spiritually and they need it. Yeah. In some ways, I think for a family, what you're saying, Steve, is, you know, like, how can I impact my neighborhood? How can I impact my cul-de-sac? You know what my answer is? Walk across the front yard. That's right. Have a conversation.

That's right. Instead of putting your garage door down and going in the house, which we do and I get it, but it's like, there's your neighbor. They're standing there.

Walk over and say hi and don't go, hey, just go and say hi. That just starts something. And maybe pray. Pray with your son, your daughter, your family, like, Lord, give us eyes, give us a vision of what this could look like.

And beware, because Jesus is going to answer that prayer. I've shared this story before, but I was in Costco and I felt like I need to buy, it was a really nice, warm winter coat. And I felt... Told you, Steve, she buys things for total friends.

I love it and I love it. I felt this nudge. Like, there's a woman that really needs that coat. And so I bought the coat, told Dave about it a few days later, but I was leading a high school youth group of girls at that time. And so I called a couple of the girls.

I think they were 15 and 16. I said, I feel like I'm supposed to go downtown Detroit and I need to find a woman. I feel like this coat is for this woman who's homeless. Do you guys want to go down with me and find the woman? They're like, wait, what are we doing?

Because Detroit doesn't have the best reputation, especially at that time. So we're praying in the car like, Lord, and I had this like vision, her name's going to be Mary, it's Christmas time. And she's going to be like, I've been praying for a coat. Well, we get down to this section and I have to ask, hey, where are some of the homeless people? And a homeless person says, well, there's this shelter underneath this bridge and a lot of people are there. And so we're walking together. We're like, OK, where is she? And they are excited out of their minds.

Oh, I believe that. And I see this woman walking toward us. She doesn't have a coat on.

It's January in Detroit and it's the weather's horrible. And I say to her, I'm like, there she is, this is who we've prayed for. And so I get to her and I think, I don't know why I think her name's going to be Mary. I'm like, hey, I'm Ann and these are the, and she is not nice at all.

Not nice at all. And I say, what's your name? She goes, Beth. And I said, well, Beth, I said, I saw this coat and I felt like there's somebody that needs this coat.

Is it you? Like, do you need this? She goes, I don't know. And she was so despondent.

It was so depressing. Not anything like I pictured that she'd thank me and she'd cry. She goes, I'll take it if you want me to have it, though. And then she took it and she was just dragging it along the ground behind her. And there was this part of me that was a little disappointed in her reaction.

But then I thought, I have no idea what her story is. That's exactly right. And we got back in the car with these girls, these high school teenagers, and they were like, that was the most amazing thing we have ever done. Those are your kids.

That's right. They want to see life change and they want to do something about the problems in the world. And it could be that God wants to use you and your family and your passion for Jesus to change the world as you're doing, Steve.

I'm Shelby Abbott. You've been listening to Dave and Anne Wilson with Stephen Viers on Family Life Today. You know, I've been working with young people for over 20 years now, and I found that they genuinely do want to help change the world. What if you were the one to lead them in practical ways of doing that right where you live? Well, stick around, because Stephen Viers is going to give us some practical strategies on how to do just that here in just a minute. But first, Stephen has written a book called Loving Your Community, Proven Practices for Community-Based Outreach Ministry.

You've heard lots of examples of that today. Well, his book is going to be our gift to you when you partner with us financially. You can go online to familylifetoday.com or give us a call with your donation at 800-358-6329.

Again, that number is 800, F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. And you can feel free to drop us something in the mail if you'd like to. Our address is Family Life 100 Lakehart Drive, Orlando, Florida, 32832. You know, we've been talking today about reaching your community, and we want to help you with that at Family Life. So we've created a free website for ideas and training and inspiration to guide others toward Jesus and open the doors in your community. It's called Family Life Equip, and it gives you some practical tools and inspiration on how to do just that. So you can go to familylifetoday.com and click on the link in the show notes to find out more.

Okay, here's Stephen Viers with a few practical steps you can take this upcoming holiday season. Maybe in a family, maybe that looks like reorienting some things. Maybe it's a family conversation based on biblical truth that would lead us to think this way, but then to say, you know, what would happen if we backed off on some of the gifts that we buy for one another and we find some people in our community who don't have any Christmas? And we figure out a way especially to make a hero out of the parent.

So we get the parent aside, we find out what the needs are, and we provide some funds or some gifts that that parent can give that child that otherwise they would. And I believe that would be far better than just this mountain of presents that many of us have when there's others in our town that don't. Or, okay, we're going to have a holiday meal, does it really just have to be us? Are there some other people in our town that aren't going to have any food?

How about we add some chairs to this table and it might make for some awkward... There might be some Beths. And Beth may complain about the turkey and she may say something snide about the sweet potato, but I really appreciate what you said, Ann. Beth has a story.

There's a whole lot behind that inability to immediately warm up. But, you know, Beth might be the most important guest at the Thanksgiving table. And I realize that takes our families out of our comfort zones, but I really do believe those kind of actions can transform a family. And I believe they can provide a level of joy. And I believe this, we'll see what the Lord does, but it very well could be next Christmas, what the kids are really talking about is, can we reduce our things some more so that we can do more for others?

And I'd be willing to bet this, 10 or 20 years from now, when the family is sitting around talking about Christmas, they're not talking about the new sweater they got. They're talking about the opportunity they had to serve somebody else. So loving your community, it does start at home.

How can a person who's single learn how to find joy, overcome loneliness and embrace the value of being single in a relationship focused culture? It's an important question. Well, tomorrow, Sherri Lynn is going to be with David Ann Wilson to talk about all that and the journey toward contentment in singleness. That's tomorrow. We hope you'll join us. On behalf of David Ann Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a donor supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.