I was in the city the other day and got pulled over by the cops because they thought I was there to buy drugs.

I was taking part in Flower City Work Camp, an at-home mission project where almost 500 teens from the suburbs spend their spring break doing repairs for more than 40 city homeowners. More than 100 of those teens hosted Sidewalk Clubs, where they played games, did crafts and shared the gospel with hundreds of children. The theme of FCWC for the past 20 years has been, “That The City Might See Jesus.”

I was a co-leader on one of the Sidewalk Clubs. The police pulled us over because I was driving a car full of white teens on one of the city’s most notorious drug streets. It only took a minute for the officer to understand that we weren’t looking to buy drugs. It took him a lot longer to believe why we were really there.

“We’re holding Vacation Bible schools,” I explained. “We’re playing with kids on Carl and Fairbanks Streets.”

He shook his head and knelt down next to the car window. “You’re doing what? Where?” After I explained exactly what Flower City Work Camp was all about, he told us to be careful and call him if we had even the slightest hint of trouble. He walked back to his car shaking his head.

I think he really wanted to tell us to go home, clearly concerned for our safety but also likely believing that our well-intentioned efforts were a drop of antidote in an ocean of poison.

I can’t blame him. Every day, all day, these police officers see drugs, violence, and gang activity in places where crack houses dominate neighborhoods. It’s difficult to be optimistic when all you see is despair and destruction. A 16-year-old was killed on a street corner that same week. We saw a drug dealer stopping cars as we drove to one of our clubs.

But where the police see hopelessness, we saw the chance to reach kids before they made bad decisions, and share the message that there is a God who loves them and who has a plan for their lives.

The book of James says, “If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,’ but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit?”

It’s easy to sit on the sidelines and offer to pray for people in need, to clean out your closet once a year and donate your old clothes to charity, to write a check or drop a can of beans in the mission collection box. It’s even easier to support foreign projects, to donate to African AIDS charities or even go to a foreign country on a mission trip. Those are needed, for sure.

But in his book Under The Overpass, author Mike Yankoski writes, “Something critical is missing in places that care for the broken and needy if the only people there are also broken and needy.” Someone needs to come in from the outside and shine a little light to remind people that things can be better.

I challenge you to look in your own backyard, where people are suffering and in need of hope, and find a way to make a difference. If all you can give is one hour to read to students at an inner city school or a weekend afternoon to hand out food at a mission, do it. You may change a life - or even a community.

That’s how a city sees Jesus.


To learn more about Flower City Work Camp, visit www.flowercityworkcamp.com.

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