sacred journeys

We don’t live in south Los Angeles, but every time you drive to LAX, or go past downtown, or take the Metro to Long Beach — you are going through, or close to south-central (even though that is not the politically correct way to call south LA these days).

Anyway, read this article today in the LA Times — Living with staggering violence in South L.A.

I felt unbelievable sadness for the hopelessness in this community.

Now that we have planted a church on the west side, Kairos is hoping to plant another neighborhood church close to downtown in 2010.
It made me hope that Kairos could bring light in a multitude of ways here…

This is how we say it at times…. “Living in the city of L.A., in the way of Jesus — seeking to renew this urban area spiritually, socially, & culturally…”

Another thought about planting churches in urban areas:

“In general, a church must be more deeply and practically committed to deeds of compassion and social justice than traditional liberal churches and more deeply and practically committed to evangelism and conversion than traditional fundamentalist churches. This kind of church is profoundly ‘counter-intuitive’ to American observers. It breaks their ability to categorize (and dismiss) it as liberal or conservative. Only this kind of church has any chance in the non- Christian west.” - Tim Keller