By Beau Crosetto
Something interesting is happening in my neighborhood – a new wall is going up.
A high school teacher that was arrested three months ago owns the house on the right. He was pulled from his house in hand cuffs – I watched it all happen. Bad stuff went down that day. Furthermore, he throws loud parties into the night and to say the least some really fishy stuff is happening over there. It’s also not the first run in with the law he has had.
The house on the left is a new family that moved in about a year ago. They have two young girls about age 10. Obviously the family is concerned with the arrest and noise and the partying. So a wall is going up – right in the middle of the driveway.
Until two days ago the driveway was shared.
I can guarantee you this was not talked about, so the indirect and not so subtle wall being built is a loud way to say, “You’ve crossed the line – we’re done.”
As I drove by the wall today, I couldn’t help but think about the walls we all build up in our lives with regard to mission and other people – literal and figurative walls.
I also couldn’t help but think how the guy on the right, the party boy, is feeling and what will it take to reach him with the gospel.
Thirdly, I thought, “Can I blame the family for putting the wall up? Wouldn’t I do that if I lived next to this guy? I have small kids too.”
But a huge part of me is also saying,
“No! We can’t build walls. We have to stay in people’s lives, even if it is a bit dangerous. This wall is only saying we don’t want you in our life when I know God wants to invite this guy in.”
I hate how American culture is so fear based. I hate how we build up so many walls between people that bug us, are a bit dangerous, or are just flat out annoying. We aren’t only building walls in our driveway, but across the country and with other countries too!
But also I get it. My first reaction was “Yeah, build that wall. Good call”.
So take this small example of a neighbor and interact with me in the comments. Here are a few questions I am asking:
- What would you do? Would you build the wall? Why or why not?
- What does it say about our culture that we do this so easily?
- How is “wall building” affecting mission and the spread of the gospel?
Why Release The APE Exists
This blog is dedicated to activating people to plant new ministries, share their faith, and fight for justice outside the walls of the church.
We are all about the missional incarnational impulse. What does that mean? Simply, we want people to embrace being sent by God to stay in a place or people group long enough to build trust and authentically show them Jesus. We don’t only want to share our faith with strangers, but with the people that live and work around us every day. That takes incarnation and intentional missional living.
I think it means leaving the walls down even when you have good reason to build them.
How is “wall building” affecting mission and the spread of the gospel?
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