Love Without Walls: Learning To Be A Church in The World For The World by Laurie Beshore
Love Without Walls: Learning To Be A Church in The World For The World by Laurie Beshore
Love Without Walls: Learning To Be A Church in The World For The World by Laurie Beshore
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ZONDERVAN
Love without Walls
Copyright 2012 by Laurie Beshore
This title is also available as a Zondervan ebook. Visit www.zondervan.com/ebooks.
Requests for information should be addressed to:
Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Beshore, Laurie, 1956
Love without walls : learning to be a church in the world for the world /
Laurie Beshore.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-310-89310-3 (softcover)
1. Mariners Church (Orange County, Calif.)History. 2. Church work
CaliforniaOrange CountyCase studies. I. Title.
BX9999.O73.B47 2012
280dc232011051689
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible,
New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica,
Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers,
Inc., Wheaton, Illinois. All rights reserved.
Any internet addresses (websites, blogs, etc.) and telephone numbers in this book
are offered as a resource. They are not intended in any way to be or imply an
endorsement by Zondervan, nor does Zondervan vouch for the content of these
sites and numbers for the life of this book.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed
reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Cover design: Micah Kandros Design
Interior design: Matthew Van Zomeren
Printed in the United States of America
12131415161718/DCI/2019181716151413121110987654321
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To Brian Norkaitis,
one of the founding leaders of Mariners
Outreach and cherished friend:
your passion for the cause of Christ continues
to inspire our church and me.
We could not have made this journey without you.
To Kenton,
my partner in life and ministry for more than thirty-three years:
you continue to amaze, encourage, and challenge me.
To the people of Mariners Church:
this is your story.
Thank you for letting me be a part of it.
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Contents
Foreword by Kay and Rick Warren. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Introduction: Going Boldly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1. Getting Started. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2. Relationships. And One Other Thing: Relationships. . . . 29
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Foreword
The Bible says, Our love should not just be words and talk; it
must be true love, which shows itself in action (1John 3:18).
Thats what this book is all about: love in action! Just as Jesus
came to serve and to give [his] life, we are called to do the same.
Three of the keys to effective Christian service are compassion,
which literally means to suffer with, sacrifice, which is a willingness to place the needs of others ahead of your own, and faith,
which is the confidence that God can and will use you.
Too often, we are more interested in serve us than service.
But Jesus explained that only in giving our lives away will we
ever understand what it means to really live. For the past ten
years, weve seen this truth demonstrated over and over again, as
our church has sent out 15,869 members through the P.E.A.C.E.
Plan to all 196 countries of the world. That didnt just change the
churches we went to serve; it changed our church.
Significance doesnt come from status, success, salary, or sex.
Significance comes from service. You will never be happy until
you give your life away for a cause greater than yourself, and there
is no greater cause than the kingdom work of meeting others
needs in Jesus name. In this wonderful book, our dear friend
Laurie shows you how to do this.
Laurie emphasizes the fact that God deeply loves the poor,
the sick, the outcast, widows, and orphansa ll groups that our
success-infatuated culture prefers to ignore. Love without Walls
explains what it means for your church to be countercultural and
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Introduction
Going Boldly
We all love stories of heroes. Of great battles fought and won.
The Cinderella story of coming from behind and claiming
victory. Whether fictional or true to life, these stories capture our attention, emotions, and hearts. They inspire us to
do great things. They give us hope and faith in our world and
humankind.
No one is inspired by no-win scenarios. The lost cause makes
us drop our hands to our sides and walk away.
Looking objectively at the world around us, we can put
much of what we see in the second, less desirable category. Ive
spent the past twenty-five years confronting situations many
would consider no-win. The challenges in our society are great
and seemingly hopeless. We see generational cycles of poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, inadequate health care, child
abuse, elder abandonmentthe list goes on. These issues seem
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INTRODUCTION 13
What If
Consider what the world would be like if the church in every
community became known for its
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compassionate love,
humble service,
radical grace,
willingness to listen,
story of redemption,
posture of learning,
and sacrificial love.
What might that look like? What would it look like for the
power of God to extend beyond the walls of the church building
into the world, as a visible display of Gods love and mercy to
those in need?
Today, p
eople think and say all sorts of things about the
church, many of them not complimentary. The church is perceived to be irrelevant, intolerant, judgmental, petty, meanspirited, and reactionary. Christians are frequently thought of as
inauthentic, exclusionary, and prideful. Sadly, these impressions
are often accurate.
Weve met p
eople who have learned through experience that
no one will help them. Or when someone does come to help,
odds are they wont stay. As a leader in the church, Ive encountered my fair share of criticism. Ive had to address the suspicion
of those who have been hurt or wounded by the church. Ive had
to make huge leaps in my understanding as Ive learned how to
live, listen, and lovea ll in service to our community, for the
sake of the gospel. In the name of building relationships, volunteers from our outreach ministry have acknowledged and been
held accountable for pain that has been bestowed on those in
need. These p
eople have been hurt by our society, government,
or church, and we are here to serve them and help make it right,
through Gods grace.
This renewed understanding of our call to serve and love
those in need has changed us as a church body, forever altering
the way we see ourselves in relationship to our community and to
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INTRODUCTION 15
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Chapter one
Getting
Started
We took risks. We knew we took them. Things have
come out against us. We have no cause for complaint.
Robert Falcon Scott
The year 1984 was a tough one for our staff at Mariners. After
we went through four senior pastors during a period of seven
years, experienced a messy church split, and saw our attendance
dwindle from fifteen hundred to two hundred, God had us right
where he wanted ushumbled and dependent.
My husband, Kenton, had joined the church staff five years
earlier as the college pastor. He was working hard to keep the
ministry alive when the elders, in a last-ditch effort to keep the
doors from closing for good, asked him to be the senior pastor.
After much thought and prayer, Kenton decided to accept their
offer, but with one request: he did not want to talk about money
for the first year. Because of what the congregation had been
through, he didnt want to constantly be asking them to contribute more cash to a seemingly vulnerable enterprise. And he didnt
want to start his first full ministry year in the red. We have to
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Getting Started 19
Following J
esus = Compassionate
Suffering
The team fleshed out the details of what a ministry to the poor
and needy would look like according to the Scriptures. Based on
their study, they identified three key principles:
1.
Developing a heart for the poor and those in need is nonnegotiable. Serving is not for a select few, nor is it the
special duty of leaders. It is critical to the life of every
believer.
2.
Compassion means literally to suffer with. If we are to be
compassionate, we must roll up our sleeves and be willing to embrace those who are in poverty and in pain.
Service cannot be done from afar.
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3.
Christian service cannot be separated from Christian faith.
The sharing of the gospel message must be at the heart
of every ministry.
In March 1987, Pastor Scott and the rest of the leadership team
stood in front of the church to propose their plan for spending
the surplus money. Their announcement followed more than two
years of deep, sincere reflection on what God would most want us
to do. When the team finished their announcement, the congregation broke out in spontaneous applause. Nearly a hundred people
expressed a desire to be involved in the fledgling ministry they were
proposing to start, and a special offering of twelve thousand dollars
was taken that day. Our church had heard Gods voice. P
eople were
thrilled about the start of our journey to understand Gods passion
for the poor. The stage was set for us to begin an outreach ministry
in our community, and Mariners Outreach was born.
While the ministry enjoyed a strong launch that day, our early
development was slowed as we tried to understand exactly what
we were doing. At the time, there was no blueprint for this kind of
outreach program, and challenges arose as we sought Gods desire
for the what and the how of our day-to-day ministry. Thankfully,
because of the solid scriptural work done by our formation team,
we were always very clear on the why.
Beyond the why, however, we had a lot of learning to do. We
had to learn that seeing people through Gods eyes doesnt happen overnight; it happens slowly, incrementally, one day at a time.
From the start, we wanted to have the heart of God; we wanted to
see people the way he did. We wholeheartedly embraced certain
beliefs about the message we had to share and the importance of
what we were doing, but many of us struggled with how all of this
played out in real time.
One day, this struggle hit me in the face full force. At the
time, I was an eager volunteer like everyone else. But I realized I
had a long way to go when it came to loving like Jesus.
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Getting Started 21
In His Shoes
It was three days before Christmas. My van was filled with boxes
of brand-new shoes generously donated by the people of Mariners
for homeless men at the Orange County Rescue Mission. But as
I sat in rush-hour traffic, thinking of everything I still had to do
to create a memorable Christmas for my family, I was feeling far
from charitable.
Id already done my part overseeing the shoe operation. Id
approved the plan to collect the shoes. Id encouraged volunteers as
they sorted and matched the requests. And Id celebrated as donations poured in. It wasnt my job to deliver the shoes too, was it?
But things come upespecially during the holidaysand
our volunteer driver had canceled at the last minute. There was
no time to find a replacement, and I had a big van. Delivering
shoes to homeless men became my job.
I arrived at the mission around dusk, just as the guests were
lining up for dinner. To drop off the boxes, I had to walk back
and forth alongside that dinner line. As you can imagine, many
of the men were unwashed. The smell was difficult to take. I felt
threatened. I was way out of my comfort zone and afraid. I lowered my head, averted my eyes, and worked fast. I unloaded my
cargo in minutes, hopped back in my van, locked the doors, and
sped away. My work was done.
But God wasnt finished with me.
Even before I reached the freeway on-ramp, I had a gnawing
sensation in my stomach. I knew God was trying to get my attention. It wasnt the first time I had felt this sensation. So I did what
I usually did. I tried to reason with him. Sure Id been a little rude,
I acknowledged. But if anyone needed a heart adjustment, it was
the volunteer who had flaked out, not me. Id completed my good
deed for the day, and I had a lot of other important things to do.
As these thoughts rattled through my head, even I knew I was
being more than a little self-righteous.
I imagined God looking right into my heart, seeing it as only
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Spiritual Binoculars
My experience delivering the shoes was the beginning of a new
work God was doing in my life. It was time to confront the selfish
spirit that had been revealed in my heart that day.
If it was this painful for me, who had grown up in a loving
Christian home, to turn to God after I had sinned, how much
harder was it for these homeless men? I feel such pain and shame
when I disappoint. It causes me to withdraw and isolate myself.
Yet God pursues me, loves me, embraces me even in my mess. He
doesnt wait for me to get my act together first.
How will those men at the shelter ever hope to believe in a
God who loves like that if his followers keep their distance? The
shoes were really just a small token, an excuse, to allow me to get
close enough to them to whisper the message of his love and grace.
Once I finally wrapped my brain around that, I took it to
heart. God was asking me to join him in an amazing adventure.
I began to look at everyone around me as if God were holding
up a pair of binoculars for me. I began to read the Scriptures
passages Id read since childhood and thought I knew pretty
wellwith a new understanding.
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Getting Started 23
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There are p
eople in this parable who are dumbfounded that
they have somehow missed Jesus visit. They ask him, When did
we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in,
or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or
in prison and go to visit you? (Matt. 25:3739). Jesus answers,
Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters
of mine, you did for me (Matt. 25:40). In other words, God looks
at the way I treat those in need and sees in my attitude and actions
an indication of the way I would treat Jesus, were he standing before
me. Serving those in need is a barometer of my love for God and a
fundamental indicator of the health of my relationship with J esus.
Caring for the poor and marginalized isnt complicated. It
doesnt require a great act of heroism. A cold drink, a bit of food,
helping a sick person, sharing my home and my timethese
are small things, acts of human kindness that anyone can do. In
fact, the actions that Jesus refers to in this parable seem so small
and insignificant that the people chosen to enter heaven cannot
identify anything special they had done to draw Gods attention.
They engaged in these simple acts out of the overflowing of their
love for Jesus, yet they had eternal consequences, consequences
that affect the one who gives far more than the one who receives.
God embeds himself among the poor and those in need. This
theme runs throughout the Old and New Testaments, and shows
up in the words of the prophets, the apostles, and Jesus himself. The poor are central to Gods heart. He defends his weakest
children.
Those who oppress the poor insult their Maker, but helping the
poor honors him.
Proverbs 14:31 NLT
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Getting Started 25
or threatened in any way. Conversely, if you treat one of my children with kindness, my heart automatically softens toward you.
God says something similar to us: If you mess with the poor,
youre messing with me. But the flip side is true as well: when we
help those in need, God is honored and pleased.
If we want to honor God, we must share in his love for his
children, particularly the ones in greatest need. Helping others
requires that we take action and close the gap between us. Love
cant be experienced from a distance. It involves showing up. It
requires us to get close to people.
Jesus spent a lot of time with people who had been marginalized or rejected by society: tax collectors, prostitutes, and the
like. He may have fed the five thousand, but he also embedded
himself with them. He lavished those people with grace. He honored people with his time. He paused on their behalf. He touched
them. He healed them. He loved them. They werent just needy
individuals who happened to cross his path. Jesus went out of
his way to identify with those who were poor, those who were in
need, often going to them instead of simply waiting for them to
come to him. Jesus took the initiative and spent his time in places
and situations where he would come into contact with the poor
and marginalized.
For you know the grace of our Lord J esus Christ, that though he
was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through
his poverty might become rich.
2Corinthians 8:9
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Getting Started 27
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