St. John's Drive

Tonight, I decided to drive through the St. John's neighborhood here in Austin. Our church, The Austin Stone, has targeted this neighborhood and will build a permanent church home there in the coming years.

I've walked through St. John's during the day, but it's a whole different neighborhood at night. At nearly every house, people stood outside, leaning on their cars, smoking, talking, having birthday parties.

I turned my radio down and rolled down my windows, just listening. Here are my raw emotions: scared, intimidated, wrong cultures for me.

Just a bit earlier, I spent some time at the Domain walking through the outdoor mall; staring into windows that showcased David Yurman Jewelry, Louis Vuitton accessories, and Apple 3G I phones. I had just sipped an Iced Coffee from Seattle's Best.

I wanted, though, to travel to St. John's directly after my Domain experience to realize the dichotomy that exists between just 5 miles of earth.

I'm praying that God would expand my heart for the people of St. John's since our church will be there for a LONG time to come. I realized tonight...God has a LOT of work to do on my heart.

That Random Helicopter...

As I write, I'm listening to a helicopter circling above our house. From my time at KXAN, I know that it's the Austin Police Department chopper.

Putting two and two together (I saw about 4 police cars near our pool as I drove back home tonight) I called our Assignments Editor, Hal, at the station.

Hal called APD's watch command and they told him an armed robber had just ditched his car at the pool parking lot in our subdivision.

So, as a curious journalist, I decided to stick my neck outside. (Sorry Mom and Gail). And the helicopter directed its spotlight on me. Then it shone the light in our backyard, and it circled our house for about five minutes.

I called 911 because I saw two guys two yards away from us. After a few nervous minutes, they said it was the K-9 unit.

Because of all this activity, our neighbors all came out of their homes (I wasn't the only one). Neighbors I'd never seen before. Neighbors who live right by me, and I haven't seen or heard from or even knew existed. I saw my neighbor Adam and his roommate I had met about two months ago. They all came outside because they wondered about the commotion. Praise God for this.

For a moment, I thought about my safety. Only for a moment.

And then I thought of this silly book I posted about earlier tonight called the Irresistable Revolution. In fact, in this book, I had just read a chapter about "the danger of safety."

"Some Christians take so few risks, it's no wonder folks have a hard time believing in heaven," said Shane Claiborne, the author. "Most of us live in such fear of death that no one really believes in the resurrection any more."

As you learn in the book, Claiborne lives among the poor and destitute in the inner city sharing the good news of Jesus Christ in a way that puts aside any idea of personal safety for the sake of the Gospel.

"Sometimes people ask me if I'm scared of the inner city," Claiborne says. "I usually reply, 'I'm more scared of the suburbs.' The scriptures say that we should not fear those things which can destroy the body, but we are to fear that which can destroy the soul (Matt. 10:28). While the ghettos may have their share of violence and crime, the suburbs are the home of the more subtle demonic forces - numbness, complacency, comfort - and it is these that can eat away at our souls."

Tonight we had a bit of the 'inner city' come to the suburbs in the form of a random helicopter and a bit of crime.

I took a risk of sticking my head out the door to figure out what was going on.

As hard as it is to say, I tried to take a practical step out of my personal fort of safety. Had the girls been home, I might have thought differently to stay inside right beside them, but tonight, as I was alone, I decided to step outside my house, even with an APD chopper above shining its light on me. Was it the safest move? Nope. Probably not. But I got to meet a few neighbors and establish an avenue for relationships in the future.

Some of you might get mad at me for making the move I made tonight to step outside. "Why even blog or post about this?" you might ask. I'd submit that I made a few new friends because of the ordeal. I'd also submit that it's made me question how numb or complacent I've become living in my little part of suburbia.

These are questions I wouldn't have been able to ask myself had I just stayed inside and listened to the helicopter above, watching Jay Leno.

I stepped outside on faith. As I prayed, God protected me. Thank God for that random helicopter