The Church Embattled
Wayne Gordon
The secular world supports ministries that help people with their physical and mental needs, especially if the church tackles problems no one else can or will.
— Wayne Gordon I am the founding pastor of Lawndale Community Church, located on the west side of Chicago in the fifteenth-poorest neighborhood in America. You might guess we've had our share of crises. After meeting in a storefront for several years, we purchased a former factory. It had space adequate for offices, a worship center, classrooms, and community services such as a medical clinic and a gym, but it needed major renovation. In order to have a usable gym, for instance, we needed to excavate six feet of dirt from the basement. We started with a few strong backs and some picks, shovels, and wheelbarrows. In their spare time, people from our church, of all ages, wheeled one load of dirt after another into our adjoining lot. The pile steadily grew. After nine months, someone donated a bulldozer and driver; we knocked a hole in the side of the building to fit the bulldozer through, and in three days the job was done. But what to do with that mountain of dirt? When we received our building permit, the city said we could use the dirt for berms around our lot. But we had a lot more dirt than we needed for that. So for over a year, the dirt sat there. Then trouble struck. One night a man hid behind the dirt pile, jumped out, and mugged a passerby. A short time later, it happened again. One tragic night, someone from behind the dirt pile shot and killed a passerby. Then another person was shot and killed. We had been working to turn our inner-city street into a place of light and peace, but it had turned even darker. Naturally, we became desperate to move the dirt. The ...
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