did the upper room stink?

a few of us from "the gathering" went to central city church in Skid Row this last week to help them with their christmas preparations. we helped to assemble and wrap gifts for families that are ministered to by this church. they are the only church in Skid Row. there are missions there obviously (fred jordan, union rescue, etc) that have christian service in mind, but this is the only church that holds sunday services and such.

the thought was immediate..."it smells nasty in here". it was the smell of the kids that were there running around waiting for the buses to their field trip. but i am sure that the sanctuary always smells like that. their congregants are homeless for the most part.

as soon as we walked in, a little girl threw her hands up at teresa and asked her to pick her up and hold her. it was both beautiful and extremely sad at the same time.

the more time i spent there, the more i realized 1) what an impact this church really has in meeting the basic needs of the people around them and 2) what a wimp I am.

i felt a little ashamed to be standing there in all my labels (DVS shoes, Etnies t-shirt, etc) while I was making gift boxes of shampoo and blankets.

i was talking with sonia last night about our experience, and i told her that if she ever died and i was left alone, i would probably ditch my current life and do something drastic like live on the streets for a year and do ministry. maybe i was talking idealistically, and maybe i was talking from emotion, whatever. but nonetheless, the mark on my mind was significant.

my brother sent me a link to the christianity today article this morning about the new monasticism. there was an interesting quote in there: "how can you worship a homeless man on sunday and then ignore one one monday?". that's a really good question...