When the back bone goes the body shrinks!

I just finished reading Mitch Albom’s book Have A Little Faith. It is an interesting story of his faith journey. In the book I was challenged by the two lives, one a rabbi the other an inner city pastor. What struck me, and what struck Albom was how these two men changed so many people’s lives because of relationship. This subject also affected me some because I am also reading John Maxwell’s, Relationships 101 What Every Leader Needs to Know. Relationship, as far as leadership goes, has been on my mind a lot. As I read Albom it struck me that relationship was the key to both the Rabbi and the Pastor. What I noticed was the simple fact that they made time for everyone no matter what was happening around them. They saw their call more important than their own needs. They put others in front of themselves.

This is something I honestly struggle with. At times I am impatient and focused on my task opposed to focusing on the people I am doing it for or even forget about the greater call, the people God has called me to. There are time when I don’t want to go to the dirty or smelly places. I don’t want to go to the dangerous spots. I put myself before those I need to reach. More than that, though, these two spiritual leaders taught me about proximity. Jesus placed himself in the disciple’s lives. Jesus was present in the community. I want to be that. I want to do that. I do not want to be self seeking but follow the example Jesus has set out for me.

When I think of Pastors in my own community, the ones that seem to be affective, I notice a similarity. They all have proximity. I always see Brian Horrobin walking, running, biking around town. He seems to know everyone. His church is open for tons of community events. He even won citizen of the year. That is proximity. I think of Richard Vander Vaart who has always made time for me and my wife. He knows everyone too! It might be a Dutch thing, not sure but I think it has to do with proximity. Riding around with police, being present in the community, these are the things that change people’s lives.

In Albom’s book the Rabbi is always telling stories. When Albom asked the Rabbi how do you do what you do when no one seems to care the rabbi just told a simple story of a sales man who every day would go to the same house and get the door slammed in his face. Finally, one day he goes and the guy says stop coming by here, spits in the sales man’s face and slams the door. The sales man takes out a hanky and simple says, “It must be raining”. People may reject you because of the truth you proclaim but that does not change the way God views them. He loves them and wants them in relationship with Him. When they spit in Jesus face Jesus didn’t decide, ‘do you know what I don’t need to do this cross thing for a bunch of people who spit on me’. Instead, Jesus turns the other check and lets them spit on that one too. He went to the cross any way.

This rabbi would call everyone in his church every week, if he didn’t see them in person already. The Pastor in inner city Detroit invited drug addicts to sleep in his church and even his home. The rabbi was with the same church for six decades. The Pastor, even when funding disappeared, continued to preserver through the hard times because that is where God called him to be, with the down and out. If we lose proximity we lose the back bone of ministry and the church. When the back bone goes the body shrinks!