Look Before You Leap, Listen Before You Speak
The Gospel should give us the ability to look at our community with both unflinching realism and almost ridiculous optimism. Sin has a deep, terrible and unavoidable blast radius, but Grace much more abounds and our God rains on the just and unjust. It’s way too easy to look at East Harlem and see it only as a community of great deficits. For example, our neighborhood is extremely vulnerable to the decisions people make on Wall Street causing rental prices to soar or funding cuts for much needed programs. Locally, we hear enough stories to be enraged at the ways people hurt each other in our building and across the street. As a result, we at Open Door Fellowship are being deliberate about seeing the community with Gospel optimism as well. One practical way to do this is our community survey. It’s a valuable tool that helps us to see the assets our generous God has placed here. Several months ago, under the direction of Al Santino, the Core Team developed a community survey in order to help us:
During one survey, we encountered Valerie, a woman whose compassion puts many of us to shame. She defied common stereotypes of people in public housing by adopting two children who she raised and are now in college. How did she do that against all the odds? We have a lot to learn from her. On the other hand, we also encountered Sheila, a senior citizen who, although she complains about the lack of affordable housing, maintains her large, dirt cheap, government subsidized apartment here in the projects even though she really lives in the South most of the year. Twenty-one year old Adam told me he attended a local church regularly. He was drawn to the church because, “You can come dressed regular and they treat you like family.” We’ve been enriched by many conversations we’ve had with average people and local grassroots leaders throughout the community. As we continue to use the survey tool, it will inform our planning for the next stage in our ministry. Johnny for ODF
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