Cindi and I, Joe and Heidi Keller and their son Sam, and Lisa LaGeorge walked around Newhall a bit tonight and then went to a very cheap dinner at Mi Casa.  Then Lisa LaGeorge gave us a tour of her half of a duplex and we fellowshipped in her living room for an hour or so (she lives right across the street from Oak Manor).

It is wonderful to be in the Newhall community.  Perhaps a bit incarnational, if we don’t get lazy.  Every road except the narrow one leads to hell, so God help us to jump into this part of town and get our hands dirty.  I desperately look forward to building relationships with our neighbors and the shopkeepers and the Mexicans and the residents of the convalescent homes and hospitals and the kids running around in the parks and skating down the sidewalks… evangelism isn’t an event or a schedulable entity.  It’s a lifestyle.  I don’t recall Jesus setting dates and posting flyers for His healings.  Not that it would have been wrong to.  But He just flat-out lived.  And I want to live.  Not just dream, not just talk, not just have good intentions, not just post the record of particularly meaningful days on xanga, not just compartmentalize aspects of my life into blocks of time like “Bible reading,” “evangelism,” “discipleship meeting,” “go running” — not just eat, drink, sleep, and be merry — I want to live.

I want my life to read like a Gospel.  Love… faith… pain… sacrifices… hope… darkness… light… joy… sorrow… shouting “Hosanna!”… weeping over the city… helping the sick… attracting the outcasts… standing toe-to-toe with the hypocrites and heretics… firm… tender… bold… soft… gentle… tenacious… just like Jesus.  Yeah… I want my life to read like a Gospel.