Taking Back What The Enemy Has Stolen
(Part 1)
Throughout most of my life I have lived in and/or spent a lot of time hanging out in a part of Jacksonville called Riverside. Riverside is a historic district full of beautiful homes and locally owned shops and restaurants. There are big, beautiful riverfront mansions and humble bungalows blocks away from each other. Yards and parks are naturally landscaped with ancient live oak trees draped in Spanish moss, towering loblolly pines, and cypress trees (none of the cookie cutter landscaping that plagues most of the city). It is a truly beautiful and unique neighborhood. It is also a neighborhood that for most of my life has been ruled by the enemy.
Because of its beauty, uniqueness, and economic and racial diversity, Riverside has always attracted free spirited, young, artistic people. You can be standing in line at the local grocery store between a millionaire banker in a business suit and a guy wearing all black with thirty piercings in his face and neither bats an eye at the other. It is just how this neighborhood is. The level of acceptance people have for each other's lifestyles is nothing short of amazing.
Most of my life the only thing not accepted in Riverside was Christianity. Don't get me wrong; there are big beautiful churches of every denomination all over the neighborhood. These churches have always had packed pews on Sunday mornings. I'm not saying that there weren't any Christians in Riverside. I'm saying that public expression of a love for Christ outside of your Sunday morning service was frowned upon. In the bars, restaurants and coffee shops, if someone were heard talking about their faith, it would attract dirty looks at best. A lot of the "counter-culture" had such huge resentments toward Christianity, from sometime in their past, that the mere mention of Jesus’ name would make them cringe (I was once guilty of this too). The enemy had found fertile ground to plant his lies in this neighborhood so rampant with a mix of beauty and sin.
There are no good guys and bad guys in this story. A lot of Christians in Jacksonville are just as guilty of creating this environment as the guys dressed like Marilyn Manson proclaiming their love for Satan. See, Jacksonville, like a lot of the Bible Belt (and America for that matter), has a hand full of large, influential churches whose only purpose seems to be trying to rule the city with an iron thumb. A lot of Christians spend more time judging the broken than they do loving them and accepting them for where they are in their lives. Somewhere along the line the gospel got confused. People started believing that as Christians it is our job to force everyone to follow our morality. There is even a large, influential church here in town that buys up liquor licenses and locks them in a vault so that fewer bars are able to open. And, somehow, we wonder why people have resentments against our faith. Trying to use force to spread our morality and judging others for their faults does nothing to help bring people into the Kingdom. Truthfully, it hurts that cause and therefore is a sin. Jesus told us to go forth and spread his word through love and prayer and the Holy Spirit will come in and do the rest. Trying to force people to come to Christ just hardens hearts so that the Holy Spirit can't get in.
The good news is that the tide is turning here in Riverside and hopefully in the rest of the city. There are more and more churches popping up around town whose mandate is to spread God's love and pray for the broken. There has been a tidal wave of young people, who can only be describes as "counter-culture", joining churches, hearing the gospel, and experiencing God's grace. It is an amazing thing to see so early in my recommitment to Christ. I was sitting in Bold Bean Coffee Roasters (my favorite coffee shop)
