Chronic pain. Infertility. Loneliness. Financial insecurity. Illness. All of these issues and more are part of the daily life of the women I met last Monday night.
For any ministry concerned about its integrity, there is a constant tension between “going deep” and “going wide.” You may have heard ministries described as “a mile wide and an inch deep”—obviously not a good thing.
About three years ago, when my wife and I first arrived in San Diego, our team leader, Rob, and I walked into the office of the newly hired varsity basketball coach for the local high school and asked if he needed help. Little did we know that this coach, Ryan, was praying just 45 minutes earlier for God to send him help. Needless to say, we were hired on the spot.
Chad and I, with support from our mission community, coach lacrosse for a premiere prep school of 1500 boys in New Orleans. There are 105 on our team of three squads, along with over a dozen assistant coaches. Conservatively, we’d say that over 100 of them are culturally religious at best, while some are admitted secularists, pagans, and atheists.
We first met Lee (not his real name) in August of 2007. He had moved down to attend Tulane Law School, and he and his roommates were reticent to make friends. They had been here a couple of weeks when we had to evacuate for Hurricane Gustov, the first threat since Katrina. We invited them to go with us, but they were “outta-here!” They packed up their house completely—100%—and left.
Every Tuesday and Thursday we have the privilege of sharing the love of Jesus with children in our neighborhood. We do this through stories, songs, conversations, games, and more, and I am responsible to develop the theme and biblical story for each gathering.