J.R. Briggs

When the Spirit takes you to unique places

March 2, 2010

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“Don’t suppress the Spirit, and don’t stifle those who have a word from the Master. On the other hand, don’t be gullible.” – 1 Thessalonians 5, The Message

In this season of my life, I’ve been growing to become more accessible to the work of the Spirit. This has been quite a process for me. [More on this in future posts]. I’ve always been a bit leery of being fully accessible to the Spirit’s work (due to personal experiences where I’ve seen the misuse, abuse, sensationalization of the Holy Spirit. And late-night religious television programming). Not to mention the fact that I am a recovering Presbyterian. I feared that if I was open to the Holy Spirit working powerfully in my life I might do crazy things that gave my friends the spooks or I might conduct church services where people ran around the auditorium naked during worship.

I’m kidding.

Sort of.

But I am slowly growing and maturing, trusting this third person of the Trinity and grappling with the true essence of what it means to grieve the Holy Spirit, especially when I ignore him. I have friends, mostly other church planters, who are sensitive to God’s Spirit in ways that I long to grow into. They’ve challenged me, asked me questions, shared stories of God’s evident work of His Spirit and the wisdom that is duly present. Slowly, I’ve been asking “Jesus, what do you want to say to me today?” and “Holy Spirit, what is your intent with me today?”

Maybe I was becoming a charismatic with my seatbelt firmly fastened.

With that being said, something happened Sunday that I am not sure would have happened had it not been for this growing season of openness to the Spirit in my life.

Sunday morning before the Renew gathering I read an article online that a dance team from Temple University was traveling to a dance contest in North Carolina and was involved in a terrible car accident. One of their team members was killed. The article mentioned the girl’s name and that she lived in Lansdale. My heart broke for this family. I was trying to imagine just how horrific it would be if I just found out the tragic news that I’d lost a child this way. For whatever reason, there was this subtle yet clear prompting as I read the article.

Do something. Bring healing. Go introduce yourself to this family.

I looked up the name of this girl’s family (from what I could tell, it seemed like an Indian family from the last name), searched for the corresponding address and wrote it down in my notebook. For some reason on Sunday afternoon after our gathering I found myself feeling prompted again to do something. I now had the address of the family and knew which apartment complex – and number – they lived in.

So I did something that surprised me: I drove over to the apartment complex and parked outside the leasing office. I went inside and introduced myself to the manager, saying I was a pastor in the area who had read about the news of one of her tenants who had lost a daughter yesterday. I said that I had never met the family, but that I wanted to go introduce myself, offer my sympathies, leave my card and tell them that if there is anything they needed to give me a call.

The manager (who seemed startled at first and then grew to be pleasant and grateful throughout the conversation) gave me the key to the front door of the apartment building of this grieving family and told me to just bring the key back when I’m done. She mentioned to me that the father of the girl had just been laid off last week from his job and the family was really hurting.

And she asked if I would do her a favor while I was there: the elderly woman that lives right below this family was having a difficult time as well. She was old and sick, had no family and was very lonely. Her only friend was her dog, who passed away recently. And she knew the girl upstairs who just passed away, too, and was taking it very hard and feeling very lonely. She asked if I’d knock on her door and offer her my card as well, asking if there is anything we as a church could do for her.

No problem, I said.

I walked over to the apartment building thinking with each step. My mind and heart were racing: “What am I doing? This is crazy. I haven’t met this family before. Why would they want to hear from me? They’re grieving terribly. They don’t need me to get involved in this situation. Leave them alone.”

I almost turned around and went back to the car. Fortunately, I had enough nerve to unlock the front door to the building and climb the stairs to their apartment door. With heart racing, I knocked. I was greeted by one of the sisters. I was nervous. I introduced myself to her and told her I was so sorry to hear of the news. I told her that I’m a pastor and I wanted to help – our church wanted to help her family – however we could. There were about 20-25 family members and friends sitting around talking, grieving, sitting stunned and drinking from their Coke cans. I told her I didn’t want to interrupt or take much of her time, but to offer help, to offer hope.

Her mother then came to the door and I went through the same information again. The pain on her face was heart-wrenching. The look of bloodshot eyes and sagging shoulders and wet tissues in her hands. What do you say to a mother who was told just 24 hours prior that her daughter had been killed? I sat with her briefly and told her that if she needed anything – big or small – to give me a call on my cell phone, the number which I had jotted down on the back of my card. She thanked me. Then a neighbor across the hall came over to give her a hug and say he was sorry. I left.

Before leaving the building, I went downstairs to the apartment directly below this family – the apartment of the elderly woman the manager told me about. With my heart racing again, I knocked. An African-American woman in her mid-seventies came to the door with her cane. She had that unmistakable look on her face that said, “Who are you and what the heck do you want?” (which was actually quite understandable at that moment).

I stammered out the same thing I had said upstairs – I’m a pastor in the area who heard about the news and wanted to come over and offer my sympathies to the family upstairs. But while I was here, the manager had told me that I should stop down and say hello to her and find out how she was holding up and if there was anything I could for her.

After a moment, she invited me in. And she matter-of-factly showed me her collection of carved elephants. As she did, I could hear the creaking of the ceiling, creaking created by the shuffling and walking around of all of the grieving family members and friends directly above us.

I asked her if there was anything our church could do to help her. She asked a lot of questions about our church (Are you guys non-denominational? Where is your building? What’s the name of your church again? Now tell me again: how did you find me?)

After about five minutes her face softened and she began to smile.

This is what churches should be doing more, she said, her volume and inflection rising while she shook her cane out in front of her as if she was jousting.

“Well,” I said, “we believe that if Jesus were here in Lansdale today and if he read in the paper this morning about the death of a Temple student who lived in town he’d probably drive over and offer his sympathies and ask if there is anything he could do to help. And so, here I am. Here we are.”

“Will your church really be open to helping me?” she said.

Sure.

“Well, I am lonely. I was a foster child. I have no family anymore. It’s just me. Could someone come over and just read me the Bible and keep me company every now and then?”

Yes.

I gave her my business card where I had scribbled my cell number and also wrote down her phone number in my notebook.

After about 15 minutes – and a few more elephants she wanted to point out to me – I left. I returned to the leasing office to give the key back to the manager. She asked how the family was doing and we chatted for another 10 minutes or so. She thanked me repeatedly, enough times that it was a bit awkward. I left her my card as well and said that if she heard of any needs from these residents – or if she had any needs – to give me a call.

I’m not exactly sure what happened. The whole visit just seemed so surreal. A newspaper article I read yesterday morning. But as crazy as I thought it was initially, I’m grateful that I was open to something as unorthodox as introducing myself to strangers who were grieving deeply and managing an apartment and recovering from pneumonia surrounded by elephants.

The Spirit showed up. Imagine that.

It makes me wonder what other promptings I’ve missed in my life where the Spirit was inviting me to join with God in bringing healing to the world, but I thought were too weird, too stretching or too subtle to hear it in the busyness of my life.

Maybe with enough stories of God confirming these promptings with evidence of connection, I’ll be reminded, challenged and inspired to listen more intently – in order to sense more of what the Spirit’s intent is for my life in the coming days and weeks as an ambassador and an advocate for the kingdom.

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