Rescue centers

Recent Sundays have found me in rescue centers. The people who go there call them church, but they are, in fact, places where those people have been rescued.

The first sits atop a rocky hill in northern Massachusetts, close to the ocean. The town is as rocky as the hillside, full of rough and tumble families who either have known the hardship of the sea for generations, or who are new immigrants looking for a place to call home.

The anniversary of the church – the rescue center – was occasion for testimonies. After a meal where far more people came than anticipated but all were fed, we gathered in the upstairs meeting room. Pine timbers line the walls, wide windows opening onto the woods and rocky hillside. Member after member, some still there, some who have moved away, stood to tell how they came to this place. Their lives were a saga of alcohol, abuse, bad marriages, unwanted pregnancies, despair. Again and again I heard, “I came and I was welcomed, and I found the Lord here. Jesus has changed my life completely.” Everyone wanted to be there and share the victories.

The highest corner of the church building is a replica of a lighthouse. It is symbolic of the rocky coastal town, but it is far more. It represents why this is a rescue center.

This past weekend it was a much older church on the coast of New Jersey. The city is hard, gritty, and sinful. Yet the old stone church stands in the midst of casinos and on the roof are the words, “Christ died for our sins.”

The folk who come are a rainbow of colors and a babble of languages.

Saturday night the woman beside me told me, unasked, about her abusive, drug-dealing husband, how in desperation one afternoon she knocked on her landlady’s door when he locked her out, and how she was invited in to a warm meal, taken to church, and led to Christ. Sunday noon another woman told me that she comes because it is a safe haven in her pain-ridden life. “I went to the pastor when I first came and said I needed a safe-house. He told me I had found it.”

Sunday morning we sang an old hymn about keeping the lower lights burning. Sending a beam across the wave. The pastor reminded us that we are the lower lights, gleaming for people who are struggling in the dark.

Rescue center churches are messy. People often don’t dress well, and they may smell of smoke and booze and other substances. Their teeth tend to be missing, and they are brutally honest about their lives. Downright uncomfortable at times but rescue center churches are good for me.

Jesus is in the rescue center business. Am I?