2010

I'm writing this from the leather sofas in Sanctuary 21 Durham. It's about 10.20 am and we are about to start work on the last saturday that we will be open in 2010.

It's the end of a year that we have seen sanctuary 21 spring up, a year of hard and dedicated work to get the project off the ground. It's been quite an amazing journey. 

Durham can be such a difficult place to work. Large slices of the city can be Weighed down by traditionalism and academia. Stuck in an age of reasoning and proving. In certain quarters it is full of massive egos and selfish ambition. There are Lots of so called intelligent people who's minds are so full of the know everything attitude That they just can't get a real grip on everyday life. It can be a city so full of elitism and self importance. I also have to say though that there are many amazing and incredibly caring people who live and work in the city too of course.

Reaching out into the academia and traditionalism is so difficult. 

Some People are so lost in the city of Durham who on the outside seem to have it all together. 

At Sanctuary 21 we have tried to counter the traditionalism and academia at every level. It comes in a kind of opposite spirit and attempts to  fly in the face of the academic spirit so starkly that very often it actually disorientates people.

Open arms, love, acceptance, forgiveness, simplicity, hospitality, comfort, friendliness, compassion, community, family, less of a deliberate focus on theology and doctrine and much more of a focus on a relationship with Jesus. These are the things that we try to live by as a community of Christians in a very difficult place.

We have stopped trying to chase relevance, you just can't keep up with that, and just try and meet everyday needs as they crop up. Someone always needs a loving chat, a prayer, a bowl of soup, a cup of coffee, a bit of guidance or advice, a slice of perspective. They need to hear our stories of hope from the heart not theological discourses from the brain. Our prayer walls which is mostly made of prayer requests straight from the streets of the city, is a mosaic of the deepest needs anyone could imagine, literally hundreds of them, and is a factual reminder to us (the church) that life is to short to spend time reasoning things out, its best to act and just roll our sleeves up and step into the need.

I sat the other day with a guy who traveled two hours to just have a chat with someone. He shared with me how he had never had any friends, never had a girlfriend. He shared how his father had locked him up and prevented him from having any friends when he was growing up. He told me how his family had called him useless and lazy and now in his sixties he still believed that he actually is lazy and useless. A whole lifetime of loneliness has developed as a result. I asked him what he had planned for Christmas and he said that no one ever invited him anywhere and he would just be on his own.

No amount of technical Christian jargon or a three year course on whether the Noah story or the parting of the red sea really happened could have helped this guy yesterday.

But Jesus helped him.

Because he was in the middle of that conversation, and in the coffee mug he had in his hand, and in the prayer I prayed for him, and in the arm I put around this lonely mans shoulder, and Jesus meets immediate needs.

His arms are open.

Are ours?