THE FULL MONTY:
Acts 10 To read if you have time to take in the full story.
THE CONTINENTAL OPTION:
Acts 10:10-23 Read this if you only have time for one significant passage.
ONE SHOT ESPRESSO:
Acts 10:15 ‘The voice spoke to him a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”’
Peter gets a vision from God that will change how he views the Church forever. He’s praying and he gets this vision of a sheet lowered down from heaven with all kinds of animals on it and then a voice says, ‘Kill and eat.’ Peter says: ‘No, Lord. I would never.’
This happens three times. Peter remains perplexed by the whole prayer time but then there is a knock at the door; it’s Roman guards looking for Peter. No doubt this is terrible news for Peter, a Jew, having Romans looking for him. But the Romans assure him it’s actually a friendly visit and invite him to meet Cornelius, a Roman Gentile. He goes, and the vision gets clearer. Cornelius welcomes the message of Jesus, receives the Holy Spirit and everything shifts. Peter realises somewhere in this exchange that God’s kingdom is coming to everyone - even the Gentiles! It’s mind blowing but also scary. This is no doubt the first time in Peter’s life he has felt so unclean. The whole strategy of ‘kingdom come’ is released over lunch between a Jew and a Gentile, and that wasn’t an easy lunch to have: it was against everything familiar and safe for Peter. It required a massive internal and external shift for Peter just to have lunch.
God is not restricted by buildings, styles, flavours, race, gender, religion, or comforts
God’s mad flavour
From the birth of the Church we’ve been resistant to God’s incredible freedom and huge message. We want to stay in comfortable places with people like ourselves. We resist the message and implications of taking the good news of God’s favour and kingdom to people we think don’t deserve it or won’t want it. For Peter to adjust to God’s radical plan to save the entire human race he had to reject some old ways and embrace some new ones. For one thing, he had to learn that God would never be restricted by buildings, styles, flavours, race, gender, religion or comforts. His plan is forever reaching out, going out and releasing what my friend calls ‘God’s mad flavour’ to all who are seeking.
Many years ago some ‘church planting success’ led me to a different way of living. It led me to incarnation and community. It led me to a crazy neighbourhood filled with drug addicts and mentally ill people. It led me to radical discipleship and a new level of ‘need’ for God to show up. It led me out of a building and into an apartment and then out on the street. It gave me a completely new take on what church looks like in the world. One thing it taught me, more than anything else, is how powerful an impact just a few people, living a different way, can make. Let me explain…
I used to measure church by the people coming to it. Now, I measure church by the impression made by it. Think about it. What difference would it make if your church packed up and moved out of your neighbourhood?
I used to measure church by the people coming to it. Now, I measure church by the impression made by it
Rebuilding needle park
When we first moved into our drug-addicted neighbourhood there were no children. The police used to pull me over and ask if I was lost because I had a child in a stroller. There was one park in the ‘hood’, and it was nicknamed ‘needle park’ for obvious reasons. There were a few families who moved into that neighbourhood in obedience to living out God’s kingdom right in the thick of it: bringing light and life to dead and dark places.
We used to take our kids to play in the park. It sounds normal and it would be normal anywhere else, but this wasn’t anywhere else - it was ‘needle park’. We would bring our ‘home school collective’ for a playtime to needle park. They would all stay in a line against the fence while some volunteers (mostly homeless guys) and the leaders would rake the playground for any needles or condoms that might have been discarded the night before and then we would let them play. And they would: they would have a blast. They loved it. They played on the swings and ran around making animal noises and crawled up the slide and hooted and hollered as all kids do in a playground. But it wasn’t just a playground. It was needle park.
The leaders would simply watch. Oh sure, they watched the kids to make sure they were OK, but they had a lot more to look at than that. See, when the kids played in the park something shifted in the park. I’m not kidding. Something huge shifted in the park. It was like time stood still. Every drug addict and dealer in that park stopped using and working while the kids were there. They all just sat and stared. They stared at the kids. While our kids played at that park no drug deals went down. People hardly moved. Everyone stopped and stared at the kids, and our leaders would stare at them staring at our kids; it was like a holy hush fell over that dark and desperate place. It was a sign and a wonder. Really. It was a prophetic act. Our kids were ushering in a new beginning - a sign that life was more powerful than death, a statement that revealed the truth that the place the enemy tried to claim was in fact not his after all. That land actually belonged to God. It was a park - despite all the efforts to the contrary. That place was a park, and parks are where kids play. So they played.
When we saw the reaction to kids playing in the park we played a lot more. We started to understand what it felt like to witness God showing up in public places. We started to get the hang of God’s kingdom showing up as kids were just kids. We started to do picnics in that park too. We brought frisbees. Some more families joined us and eventually the city got together with the neighbourhood and re-built the park. Literally.
More parks, fewer buildings
I was just visiting that park a week ago and I could hardly recognise it. It has been completely re-built. It has a state-of-theart playground. It has a community centre to help people in need. It has beautiful pink blossom trees lining a walkway through the centre of it.
While I walked through that park I remembered raking for needles all those years ago. I remembered what it felt like to go against the norm and bring kids where kids never go. I remembered that there were only a few of us, trying to do ‘church’ in a new way. A few small kids and a couple of crazy parents willing to follow Jesus and make some dark and dreary places a dwelling place for God’s presence.
Walking through that park made me remember how God’s kingdom comes and it made me long for more people to take God to places where he longs to go. God no longer dwells in temples or buildings or programmes - he dwells in people, and he longs to have his dwelling places invade the Earth. I never fully understood how much he longed for people and how much people longed for him until I saw him unleashed from the Church and invading the world.
What would happen if church happened at a park? What would happen if the Church just took off out of the building and showed up at beaches and parks and cafes and pubs and running routes and museums? What would happen if the Church got out of the building and invaded the spaces with God’s presence? What would happen if we invited our neighbours to a block party that didn’t have any agenda apart from having fun? What would it look like to let God be represented by children playing? It would look like impact. It would look like meeting your neighbours. It would look messy and loud and beautiful. It would look scary and holy at the same time. It would look like God’s kingdom come. And it would change things. Forever.
It’s time to stop brainstorming about how to make church more palpable for newcomers or our programmes more relevant or our meetings more contemporary, and it’s time to invade the Earth with God’s goodness. It’s time to bring him with us to encounter and transform the world, one park at a time. Where is he leading you? Where do you see him already at work? Where would you like to take the presence of God with you?
