I was pretty disappointed

After a start which as often as not left those of us involved dumbfounded, it seemed things had slowed down. It felt ordinary, business-as-usual, not bad, but not exceptional either. The first months of the church felt like every time we turned around, more miracles were dropping from the sky. People who wanted nothing to do with church were attending, the impossible grail of free meeting space dropped into our laps, money came in as we needed it, chance encounters with random people led them to our door.

But the last month or two had cooled. I couldn't sit there and say "Wow, look at what God has been doing." Were we doing something wrong? Was it a test of faith? Had the earlier things been just to get us on our own feet, then to be set free to manage on our own?

I didn't know, and I don't know.

But maybe it started when we gave away our office space. Another church needed it, one who simply couldn't find anything they could afford. A small test of faithfulness, in passing on what we had to those who needed it. Then we got back to geting our hands (literally) dirty serving the community.

Suddenly, in one day, four things happened:

1. One member of our church was able to share the vision of the church with some guys doing mandatory community service.
2. It just so happened that the area coordinator for the area we worked at for Keep Truckee Meadows Beautiful was a lady we had served with when we were recycling Christmas Trees (and she remembered us, too).
3. A businessman Dawson has talked to ran across us as we were sorting through a trash pile - actually practicing what we preach (something that came as a bit of a shock), serving the community in nitty gritty things. Again, simple coincidence.
4. Jose and Dawson were on a hillside picking up trash when Jose picked up a plastic shopping bag. Inside were a wallet and keys. Dawson returned them to a family near his house. They had been robbed near Christmas, and that they still didn't know where one set of keys were had scared them to death. They do not believe in God, but said that "an angel sent you to us."

Perhaps it's all just a coincidence. There was no manna on the ground, nothing that simple happenstance could not explain.

But for these things to happen just as we got back out in the community after our 4-week Marriage seminars (which precluded other forms of Community service), just when we were feeling like things were somehow flat, just when all of our spirits could use a little encouraging. To have people comment that "We've never seen a church doing stuff like this" is telling. I admit, I like to hear it - but I'd rather have the world go "Hey! You must be Christians, because I see Christians serving like this all the time."

I said not long ago that it is better to be giving out of your poverty and leaning on God to be truly secure. It's these "coincidences" that reinforce those beliefs.

It's a poorly constructed thought. All of this to say - the timing of coincidental encouragement, being coincidentally at the same time that I felt like we were getting back out in the community... it encouraged me. And I hoped to convey a sense of that encouragement to you.

Because as it was, only the 9 of us that showed up really got to experience the best part. Hearing the good stories from the pews is comfortable, but does not compare to knowing that your hours in the sun, the landfill-dirt clogging your ears, and your sore hamstrings from a morning of crouched trash-sorting actually meant soemthing.