I have great respect for people who look beyond their concerns and work for others, like my pastor, Dr. Sheila and my husband, Douglas. She started a Dinner Church at the local VFW building. People of all races eat together and enjoy each other’s company. I wasn’t sure that this ministry was right for our church because we lost so many of our congregation this year after a vote by the United Methodist Church that we are struggling to pay bills and pay our pastor a salary.
Still, she insisted on finding ways to connect to the community and to continue to be a light and help in our communities. The Dinner Church has been a great success, filled with laughter and people finding how much we have in common. Good food, no sermons but words of hope and encouragement in Jesus’ Name, and music just changes the dynamics of worship, tearing down the four walls that tend to separate “church folk” and “sinners.”
Likewise, Douglas works hard to bring the message of God to people, and he does it in ways that are not the usual. For instance, he started just going into restaurants near our church or in the park near there and speaking to people sitting alone. He never meets a stranger, and I am amazed at how he shows no fear, viewing all people as his brothers and sisters. He was a missionary in Kenya before I met him, and I can see how finding himself, as a white male, as the minority in a country impacted his ability to see the humanity in everyone. He will not give money to people on the street, but he will take those who accept his invitation to get a meal if they say they are hungry.
From these two people who have what I call a “servant’s heart” and the people like them whom I read are doing good deeds around the world for others, I learn to see the heart of God in others and of how to spread the love of God to people that too often the Christian culture fails to recognize as the fish to whom we are meant to present salvation through Jesus Christ the Lord. I have always believed that the love of God is better presented in the streets and byways, not while sitting in the pews. Dr. Sheila and Douglas remind me to actively seek to see the humanity of all people, for in doing so, I show my own fallible humanity.
Help from Heaven 
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