Two members of St. James Lutheran Church, Lexington, SC, stand on a rickety porch and nervously await their first door knock of the day. They stand with smoke detectors and batteries in hand hoping to give some away through the course of the day.
The door finally opens and a gruff man with tattooed arms and no shirt answers the door. With an angry look on his face he barks, “What do you want?”
“Well,” says the older St. James member nervously. “We’ve got these smoke detectors and batteries we’re are trying to give away as part of our church’s Operation Inasmuch event.”
“Why would you want to do that?” asked the man.
“Because,” answered the door knocker we want you to know that God and the members of St. James Lutheran Church care about you.” The countenance of the man changed with those words and the nervousness of the moment flitted away.
“You care about me?” he asked.
Operation Inasmuch has helped to give our church a voice in the community, and it has helped us to hear such questions as the one mentioned before. It has changed the way we look at the people who live and work in the area around our church, and it has changed the way that they see us.
Instead of [being known as] the church across the street from Red Bank Baptist church, we are [now known as] the church that distributes food to hundreds of hungry people each month.
Instead of a stoic building with signs that prohibit skateboarding, we are a church that identifies itself by the ways we help and serve those in our community. This is how Operation Inasmuch has changed our church.
Many times over the last three years members of our church now ask a different question when developing some program or project. They have not asked how some project will benefit their church, but they have asked how a project will further our mission of sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with others.
They have asked how they can serve the community whose voice they have clearly heard. They have clearly heard the community’s voice, because they have knocked on their doors. They have clearly heard the community’s voice, because they are now friends with the people who are fed by our food pantry. They have clearly heard the community’s voice, because they remember one man’s question upon receiving a smoke detector: “You care about me?”
This is why we participate in Operation Inasmuch; to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking to us through the community God has called us to serve.
(This story was written by St. James Lutheran Church at the request of the South Carolina Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. It was posted on the Synod’s web site with several other church stories to encourage churches as they prepare for their upcoming April 21 Inasmuch United. Watch a video about St. James’ Inasmuch Day experience here.).
Published in March, 2012 eNewsletter.
