Leaving Our Buildings

Hi, this is Bernie Dake. Welcome to the Salvation Army's Words of Life. Welcome back to Words of Life. I am Chris.

And I'm Bernie. We're glad that you're here. We're now in our fifth episode of our series, The Post-COVID Church. This week, we really focus on what the church started to look like as we left our buildings. For many officers and soldiers, as you'll hear, this was a time that fired them up to go out into the community even more than ever before.

Yeah. With this week's episode, this conversation made me think of was, you know, so often—well, the thing that COVID really did was, of course, make us appreciate stuff that we were maybe taking for granted. And I think even our corporate worship services became one of those things where if that's something we are starting to take for granted, it could become like a customer service experience that we just—we show up, we wait to get served, we then leave, and that's kind of it. But when we lost that, the church had to become the family, like truly the family that it's meant to be and gets outside of our walls. And we'll hear even some of these cores, they went out to their communities and said, OK, you're now a church. You're now responsible for your street.

And they were having outdoor services and really taking ownership. Yeah. Well, again, like we mentioned last week, this is actually part two of this longer discussion. So if you missed last week's episode, be sure to listen.

Visit salvationarmysoundcast.org or subscribe to Words of Life wherever you get your podcasts. And I'll just say this, too, you know, and this is not a way out, but we make things so complicated. I mean, if you just pick one person, I mean, you know, for some of us who are in small churches, our church in Johnson City is a small congregation, but if you just pick one person that you want to disciple, what that means is that you want to share the word with, that you want to help them get understanding, scriptural themes and truths that they can learn and apply. And, you know, we want to make it this and that. And I just like you guys are touching on something that I think is what's driven my wife and I, it's just that, okay, who are we talking to? You know, who are we sharing our faith with? Who are we sharing our love for Jesus with? And it was that it's kind of helped us as kind of, okay, there is a purpose to this time, even though we're not doing it like we've been trained to do it, you know, there is a purpose to this time. Just those, I just, I know I've said it over and over, just the connections is what's most important. I think the Lord would be most satisfied if he knows and he sees us reaching out to somebody and encouraging them with the love of Christ. And that's just paramount. Even moving forward, Lord help us if we forget and go back to the way we used to do it, that we forget to just make connections with people. You know, we don't have to be scholarly. We don't have to be eloquent, just be compassionate.

Just love people, encourage them where they are, learn what their issues are and encourage them through those moments. Nick, there's something burning on your heart. Yeah.

You said you hit a word, there's a word that like when you said it, it like punched me, you know, so purpose. And so for a group like this, I believe most of us, if not all of us are extroverts. We need that connection with people. We need to go out. We need to do, we are, this is how we recharge or, or we enjoy this at the very least. How about if there, I wonder if there may be a listener that listens to this at some point and says, you know what? That's not in me.

I'm not home. And now I'm feeling this way. I'm feeling without purpose, you know, what's next? You know, that's, I think that's what, what I think we also need to look at is that for me, great.

If you tell me, Hey, I'm listening to some great ideas. I'm going to follow up. I'm going to get, I'm going to build a shooting. I think it's great.

I think it's great. But what if that's not your gift? What if, you know, you're a background scene kind of person? I think we also need to address some of that. And we've seen that at our congregate with our congregation, our Hispanics have actually very much grown. I've got one lady she's sort of got the reputation of being a difficult one. She has taken this opportunity. She's ministering in her neighborhood. She's checking on her neighbors. She's taking them food. She's praying with them. They had a death in their community. She was over there.

She was praying with them. And I'm like, wow, this is, this is what you were made to do. This is what we're supposed to be doing. So our Hispanic side, they're a little more outgoing. However, our Korean side is the complete opposite through this. They very much stayed in there almost comfortable being in, being to themselves, being very cautious. And so where it's been fine for me, my Hispanics, they want to go out where we're going. He's had a whole different challenge in figuring out how to reach, how to connect with his part of the congregation, with the Koreans, because I mean, even going to visit, I mean, there was one time I went to deliver some stuff and they were like wanting to keep that space.

And I was too close to their door, even though there was a glass door in between us. And so I don't know if you want to touch on that a little bit. It's a little different, but like the people, even in the time, people are not interested in what we believe. They are interested in what we do. So that's why there are a lot of followers, but you just picked like 12 disciples and made them the people who can just share the love of God.

So this pandemic, I think it's kind of like a time tracker. We know, I don't want to say, but sometimes we can separate from husk, from like the weeds. Sometimes we kind of just expect the whole people just like focus on what they do. Instead, we continue to like, you know, the small things, we make a disciple and then they can just go into the world. We can just spread all things, even though we have a failure, but we kind of, right now, I'm just feeling like a failure with my Korean congregation because the culturally, yeah, it's different. So they kind of refuse if I will approach, but I continue to do make the disciple then eventually after this, they're going to go out, go into the war and they do what we believe. So that's, I truly believe that. I think people see what's happening though. And they realize that in the St. Francis of Assisi model, preach the gospel, use words when necessary. People are seeing what's going on and I have to believe that God's using that to maybe even stimulate their thinking, right? Could you believe that?

Can't you, Chad? I appreciate that. And I wish that we all had 18 weeks of labor from a company leaving our churches to do it, but I guess I really want to keep saying, I'm just encouraged that God equipped you to identify that you had bodies that could help. You had soldiers, willing members of your church that could come alongside your ministry, some who might've been out of work.

I know in our case, a number of people that I work with were either furloughed, which meant they weren't sure if they were even going to come back to work. And you know, they, we all wanted to make sure that no one went without, but it's just, it was such a scary time going forward. Like Jeremy said, there are some things that cannot stop. And admittedly, I'm now thinking in my own church, how can I engage more purposeful acts of worship in that sense? And I don't mean singing worship through our service. I think that's a good thing.

Again, not faith by works, but you know, faith without works is dead. We got to get to it and be a part of helping our officers beat the drum, so to speak, in our communities. Thoughts on that? Well, I mean, that's how even pre-COVID, you know, that's always trying, you know, just the other day, a gentleman came to the door and our doors are locked right now. I hate, that sounds so terrible, but our doors are locked because we're just trying to see, we got to know who's in the building at all times. We had this doorbell and he rings it and, and no one was, no one was checking the door because we were all doing something, you know, and I'm like, put on my mask and I go out there and I see who it was and I kind of opened the door kind of quickly. And he says, I just need a clothing voucher. And I'm like, I'm so sorry, man.

I'm so sorry that no one has come to the door yet. You know, come, come around this corner and I'll help you with a clothing voucher. But, you know, I got to talking with him. He lost his job due to COVID. He's homeless. He's staying in a partner agency shelter. And, and at the end there, you know, I gave him a clothing voucher.

I had a great conversation. And I, and I just reminded him, I said, I said, listen, man, we, we're, we're actually standing at a chapel because that kind of made, it opens up to the streets. We made it into our makeshift kind of social service area and said, Hey, we, we are a church. But it got me thinking, I wanted to make sure that he didn't, he didn't have to come to church in order to get, to get services. But it should always be at the back, not the back of my, it should always be at the forefront of what we do. And not just saying that we are a church, but listen, if you need to, if you need to talk, if you need to, I mean, we, we are here.

That is what we should be doing. And even, you know, during this time, we, we didn't have a, we don't really have a traditional food pantry, what you would look, see at other churches or other salvation armies. But we had to shut our thrift store down.

And so all these other partner agencies and these food pantries didn't have any way of getting food from point A to point B. And our trucks just sitting over here, just sitting. And so I am now a professional box truck driver, just letting everyone know. So that's really how we, we just said, okay, well, we'll, we'll fill the transportation gap in the county. So I mean, weekly, we're just, we're picking up food from this agency, taken to this agency, taken to this senior home, taken to this community. And that's how, that's the, one of the main ways during COVID how we were serving. But it was always, even at a, even at a, in a secular environment, I'm going to find a way to ask, how are you doing? And not just, what do you need?

No, no, no. How are you doing? How is your soul? And then you really catch people, catch people off guard. It's like, what do you need?

How am I doing? You know, we got a, we got a note, a handwritten note in the mail from one of the residents from one of the area's senior homes and just saying, thank you for not forgetting about us. And it's just, goodness, you know, it's, you know, we, so many things are changing, but what's not changing is that our ministry is still motivated by the love of God. And what else is not changing is that our message, it is still, it is still based on the Bible.

That is not changing. And our mission, you know, our, our mission is just, you know, many times that people will ask what we do. We, we got it right. It's our mission. We preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and meet human needs in his name without discrimination.

And that, that does not change and it will not change. That's who we are at our core C O R E. Go ahead preacher. You know, the Bible is not just words on a page. It is literally God's heart in our hands. And I pray that you who might be watching this or hearing this at Words of Life or through the podcast subscription that you are encouraged by it and that you can dig into God's word and find some purpose for your life this week. If you're not sure how you can serve, contact your local Salvation Army and they will be sure to find a way to help you. The Salvation Army's mission, doing the most good means helping people with material and spiritual needs. You become a part of this mission. Every time you give to the Salvation Army, visit salvationarmyusa.org to offer your support. And we'd love to hear from you. You can email us at radio at uss.salvationarmy.org. Call 1-800-229-9965 or write us at P.O.

Box 29972 Atlanta, Georgia 30359. Tell us how we can help share prayer requests or share your testimony. We would love to use your story on the air. You can also subscribe to our show on iTunes or your favorite podcast store and be sure to give us a rating. Just search for the Salvation Army's Words of Life. Follow us on social media for the latest episodes, extended interviews and more. And if you don't have a church home, we invite you to visit your local Salvation Army worship center. They'll be glad to see you. This is Bernie Dake inviting you to join us next time for the Salvation Army's Words of Life.