the gospel is the answer

Yesterday, I listened to a co-worker talk about how God's Spirit is moving through a recreation room at a training school for juvenile offenders.  Volunteers from Grundy Center's Orchard Hill Church are making and sharing cookies there, games are played, TV watched, conversations had, community built, and the thread of grace is being woven throughout.  The school's administration is taking note of something extraordinary happening there.  The visionary behind the rec room talks about this space as a "holy place", set apart for the young men, set apart by and with the young men, and set apart within the young men to experience something that will live on within them past this time and space.  

This conversation reminded me of a segment in the CCDA training that I facilitate.  In the first 3 times that the Gospel was shared after Christ left His disciples (Pentecost- Acts 2; Peter and John heal a man- Acts 3; Stephen- Acts 9) we see a similar pattern:

-The disciples were out in the community/streets.
-The Spirit of God was moving.
-People began to ask questions about something extraordinary that they were seeing and experiencing.
-The Good News of Jesus was the answer.  

Paul Tillich, theologian and philosopher, said, "It is wrong to throw answers, like stones, at the heads of those who haven't even asked a question."

Bryant Myers, author Walking with the Poor, writes, "If the people do not ask questions to which the gospel is the answer, we can no longer just say, 'Their hearts were hardened,' and walk away feeling good that we have witnessed to the gospel.  Instead, we need to get down on our knees and ask God why our life and our work are so unremarkable that they never result in a question relating to what we believe and whom we worship."  

May we live in such a way in our communities that people cannot help but to ask questions to which Christ's good news of the Kingdom of God is the answer.