Love

Sanctuary 21 is alive with life right from the off this morning.

I get hit straight away with a large group of lads who must have gotten hold of fresh supplies of some kind of drugs, because they were hyper and loud to the extreme.

All of them.

It's only 10.30 am.

They gave me some ritualistic stick about my football team, Liverpool, losing again last night. They then started arguing with each other about something ridiculous, tomato sauce to be exact.

Don't ask.

How we got from Liverpool getting beat to tomato sauce I do not know.

They never taught me this stuff at William Booth College!

Then the police come in.

They've come to mediate in a family dispute. They've chosen S21 as neutral ground.

Both sides of the family in question, are kind of snorting at each other.

Loads of students are gathering because the CU has a mission week, they look scared stiff of taking the gospel out onto the streets today. Lingering a little longer than necessary over their coffee! But they'll be OK, they are fabulous.

Our ever growing daily attending community are chatting away building each other up, no doubt.

People wander in off the street.

Every prayer room is full by 11am.

It's a bit chaotic.

I take a seat in the cafe and sweep my eye over the living scene before me.

It's hard to think five years ago this vision was just a picture in the hearts of Dawn and I.

It's mad to think that there was no one but Dawn and I at the start of this.

Five years on, this is really the first time it's really hit me what God has done here.

It's breathtaking.

It's a God created chaos.

A daily gathering of the needy. (That includes me of course)

I am humbled by the simplicity of it all.

In these days of "sexy mission," of the colourful "successful" church, of the flashy preacher, I sit and stare this morning at the brokenness of the world. I catch a glimpse of the basic reality that people need God but also still need each other.

I feel a confirmation sear into my heart.

Confirming to me that building the Kingdom ain't actually rocket science. It isn't formed by the coolest of mission plans, or the most massive congregation or the most stringent of frameworks.

It's actually love that is the key.

As I'm having these thoughts a guy called Barry comes over to me. He's one of those guys who is not the cleanest. He's one of those guys who needs us to help him with the basics of daily living. He's one of those guy who is so desperately lonely that he will talk to you for hours if you let him. He's one of those guys who seems to have a gift of catching you when you are at your busiest. He was really upset today that Dawn and I may be moving on in the summer. We've had to prepare everyone for that prospect. As I soothed his fears as best as I could, my mind went back to all the times people have spent hours just talking to this guy, eating with him, filling out food parcel forms for him, helping him. There can only be one thing behind that.

Yeah.

It's love.

Love breeds acceptance and compassion.

This place has been built on prayer.

But equally it's been built on love.

Love has required all of our workers and community to live out the basis of our Christianity that there is no hopeless case. No one who should not be accepted. No one who shouldn't have a chance to rebuild their lives.

Total compassion.

Total love.

I'm not saying that's easy sometimes, of course it isn't.

I wish I could say this place has risen from intense research, intense planning based on others experience, on working to a set plan and sticking to it like glue.

But it hasn't.

Yeah we've put some serious hours in.

We've done some brilliant stuff, we've also done some really daft stuff. We've got it wrong, we've sometimes got it right.

But it's all down to God in the spiritual sense.

And I give him every bit of glory as I glimpse at this movement of grace that is Sanctuary 21 Salvation Army Prayer Centre.

A place that has risen from the ashes of a Corps that closed down years ago. A place that stands as testimony to the power of God in building His kingdom on earth.

I'm excited today because as I glimpse all of this, it reminds us that God is alive and operating in this world.

He's saving lives eternally.

He's loving the world with a love that no one can fathom.

So love's important.

So important I would say the church is a dead thing without it.

"If I speak in the the tongues of men or of angels but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it does not dishonour others, it is not self seeking, t is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease. Where there are tongues, they will be stilled. Where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child I talked like a child. I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror. Then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully., even as I am fully known. And now these three things remain. Faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:1-13)

Man, I dream of a church built like this.

This scripture should be the foundation of any mission plan, church planting manifesto, and especially our everyday walk of holiness.

Because without love?

We are nothing.