Last Sunday morning, during our 9:45 service at The Story, as we prayed and sang together, I noticed a middle-aged man walk past me all the way to the front of the sanctuary and through the doors that go backstage. Backstage is where staff and key volunteers run the media/tech side of worship, and it’s also where pastors and band members often store our things and catch our breath between services. I didn’t recognize the man, but it looked like he knew where he was going, so I thought to myself, “He must be a new volunteer. That’s great!”
A little over an hour later, as the 11am service was starting up, I got a strange “fraud alert” message from an unknown number saying that someone tried to use my American Express card to make a purchase at CVS. Trying not to be a distraction to the other worshipers around me, I took a screenshot of the message and sent it to my wife, Geovanna, who assured me that it was just another text message scam.
“Don’t worry,” she said, “I just got spammed about our Visa bank card being used at CVS, too.”
Crisis averted, I thought (because I’m a little slow sometimes), and I tried to focus on worship again. But soon enough, the alarm bells went off in my mind, and I darted backstage to the room where I kept my bag. It was still there, so I reached inside to find my wallet, and it was still there, too. But when I opened my wallet, two things were missing. Do I even need to tell you what those two things were?
That’s right. I was robbed. I was robbed at church. I was robbed at church as I raised my hands in worship and minutes before I stood up to preach. In a way, I had to admire the guy’s strategy. I mean, if you’re going to rob a preacher, he picked the perfect time and place to do it.
What does it mean when the preacher gets robbed while preaching? How can we make sense of this?
Perhaps it means we need to tighten up our Sunday security protocols.
Or maybe it just comes with the territory when doing ministry on Montrose Boulevard.
Some might even say it was divine punishment for my overly long sermons.
All kidding aside, this unfortunate event brought to mind something that a mentor of mine said to me almost twenty years ago when Geovanna and I were planting a church near downtown Kansas City. We were based out of a traditional Methodist Church that had been dying for years, and that congregation agreed to let us use their Fellowship Hall. Within a few months, we were able to launch a pretty effective outreach to a bunch of inner-city teens.
In the year that followed, we poured all our hearts, time, and money into those kids. God opened doors for us to get close to several of their families – most of whom were living in deep poverty and dysfunction – and to help in any ways that we could. One family that we felt particularly attached to consisted of three teenage children – Jeremy, Orlando, and Jatavia – their mother, Jackie, and their stepfather, Stephen.
Of all the kids in our ministry, Geo and I spent the most time, money, and energy trying to help that family through the many struggles that they faced. All three kids had learning disabilities and behavioral challenges at school. Jackie was known in the neighborhood as a “strawberry” – a prostitute who worked for drugs instead of money – and Stephen was a hot-tempered drug addict who refused to keep a job. Wanting to do as much as we could for Jeremy, Orlando, and Jatavia, we often took them out to eat, to the movies, and to Royals games, where we tried to love them as best we could.
One evening, we got a call from the Kansas City Police Department informing us that officers were responding to a disturbance at the church. Apparently, a neighbor witnessed some kids breaking into the church office and stealing the offering money out of the desk before running away. Lucky for us, our church was poor, so that week’s offering was only around forty dollars. In fact, the door they broke to get into the office was worth more than the offering they stole!
When I arrived on the scene, the officers shared with me the description of the three suspects: two teenage boys and a younger girl, fitting the approximate ages and physical descriptions of Jeremy, Orlando, and Jatavia.
My first reaction was outrage. After everything we’ve done for them, I thought to myself, how could these kids treat us this way!? Then I called my mentor, a pastor named Jim, who said, “Eric, how about you stop worrying about forty bucks and a broken door? These kids have given you a gift.”
“A gift?!” I said, smugly. “What kind of a gift is that?”
“They just proved your church is for real,” he said.
“I don’t get it,” I said (because, again, I’m slow).
“Well, Eric, a church isn’t really the Church until something goes missing.”
It took me a minute, but I soon realized what Jim meant. If a church isn’t reaching out to people who are messed up enough to steal from the very church that’s trying to help them, then it’s not following in the footsteps of Jesus.
Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” – Luke 5:31-32
Everybody wants their church to feel safe and secure, and in some ways I do, too. Our nurseries, for example, should be the safest places on Earth. People who teach our kids should be trained and should go through all the proper security protocols, including background checks. Safety is a good thing, but as with any good thing, it’s possible for churches to have too much of it. Sometimes our efforts to make our churches feel “safe” only serve to domesticate the wild, Spirit-led movement that we read about in the New Testament.
Even though they faced the very real danger of persecution, the first Christians didn’t gather in buildings to feel safe with people who looked, talked, and voted like them. The miracle of the original church was that, for the first time in human history, people from opposing cultures and countries willingly came together and pledged absolute loyalty to God and to each other. The first Christians were not safe; many of them died for their faith.
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds…For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members of one another. Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection: outdo one another in showing honor…extend hospitality to strangers. Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse them. – Romans 12:2, 4-5, 9-14
So all week long, as I’ve waited impatiently for my new credit cards to arrive in the mail, I’ve tried to remember the wisdom of my old friend, Jim. Instead of whining about getting robbed while preaching last Sunday, I’ve decided to rejoice.
I was robbed while preaching last Sunday, and I thank God for reminding me that the Church is for lost people, broken people, and sinners like me.
And finally, if the man who took my stuff happens to be reading this, I just want you to know that we love you and you’re welcome back at The Story anytime. Whenever you’re ready, our doors and our hearts will be open to you.
I’ll just be keeping my wallet in my pocket from now on.
