Church A Hospital?

     There is something about me and ice that doesn't get along. This story is for my friend Sheila. Actually, I had forgotten about this fall until she reminded me of it recently and it seems to be her favorite. When we were in Montana, we started a church named South Hills. We had renovated and moved into a warehouse from a hotel meeting room. Today, we lovingly call it the warehouse church. We had outgrown the classrooms and I taught a women’s Sunday School class in an office building next door to the church. One Sunday, we had our usual study and had gone late. To keep the pastor happy with me, I sent the women on to church and stayed behind to pick up and close up the building. We had snow that week but a Chinook wind had come through and melted everything, at least to the eye. Knowing I needed to get to worship quickly, as soon as I locked the door, I took off running. As I turned the corner, there was a patch of black ice. For those of you that do not know what black ice is, it is simply ice that freezes in a way that you cannot see it. As I am sure you could guess by down, I went down; down on the gravel parking lot. I knew I was hurt but I didn’t have time to whine about it. I had seconds to get to my spot, or the pastor was going to have a little talk with me after church! My friend, Sheila loves to tell how she happened to be watching me walk into the sanctuary and down the aisle. She instantly noticed my legs. I had put holes in both legs of my panty hose and blood was running down my leg from my knee. I might have been injured but I was in my chair exactly one second before the first song began! (Dwayne: Is she trying to push this off on me?)

     In this case, my injury was physical and you could visually see it. However, every Sunday people walk into church spiritually injured. It is not visible to you, but if you pray and ask God to give you spiritual eyes to see and you take time to talk to people, actually having a caring conversation with them; you may see their hurting heart. People everywhere are hurting from the world’s critical blows. Some of these people are walking into our churches looking for something or someone to give them hope and help. We need to see our churches as a hospital for hurting people. However, all hospitals have to have staff that care for their patients. We have the great physician but does He have the nurses and caregivers to minister to His patients? Are you ready to report to duty?

Jesus heard about it and spoke up, “Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick? I’m here inviting outsiders, not insiders—an invitation to a changed life, changed inside and out.

Luke 5:31-32