I just love it when someone agrees with any of my pre-conceived notions. I especially like it when that person has the name recognition of Rick Warren. Today's Washington comPost carried an article that fleshes out the idea of my last post. Rick says its "...about deeds not creeds." I couldn't agree more.

That's the kind of thinking that recently led my friend to a meeting at 10 Downing Street to talk about faith based community projects. After the visit to explain how his church is involved in the community he wrote;

     We were greeted at Downing Street by our
     MP who escorted us through security to No.10. We then went into a
     waiting room before being ushered upstairs to the “Marble column room”
     for tea/coffee and biscuits. We were one of two groups invited to
     the PM’s residence to talk about church-based community projects.
     (PBC runs a program in which we have hired two church members to tutor
     about 20 kids excluded high school kids.) It was an informal affair
     and we, the PBC group, had roughly 20 minutes with Mrs. Brown to talk
     about our community work and our motivation for doing it. It was a
     really good discussion and she asked some good questions.

     After our audience with Mrs. Brown we were given a guided tour of
     No.10 by one of the staff who filled us in with all kinds of
     interesting and quirky facts. One of the things that I found
     interesting was walking up the grand stairway which is lined with
     portraits of every PM back to Robert Walpole in the 1700s (the first
     PM to live their). It reminded me of Heb 12:1 and the great cloud of
     witnesses watching our lives. I also sat in the PM’s chair in the
     cabinet room.

     (ALAN'S NOTE: How cool is that!)

     Our MP sits on the education committee in Parliament and would like to
     incorporate guidelines for school projects like ours in some upcoming
     legislation. She has already scheduled a visit in April and we’ve
     invited her to the graduation in early summer.

That's what people on the margins can do - live out their faith in deeds. Like the quote attributed to St. Francis of Assisi: “Preach the gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.” My friend Tony Fundaro is doing it in the Deep Ellum area of Dallas, a place that was notoriously resistant to the Gospel. His Life in Deep Ellum cultural center serves the community and is in many ways the vehicle that shattered the resistance (by local merchants, bar owners and artists) to having a church in Deep Ellum.

Its the kind of living, active faith that made me call on my friend Ron at New Life Church when God dropped several thousand Beanie babies in my lap. New Life's network of ministries enabled us to get the Beanie babies into the community and the hands of people who can use them like first responders.

As Prof. Hendricks used to say, "May their tribe increase."