”I do all for the sake of the gospel   (1 Cor.. 9:23)

To be honest, I didn´t like his longhaired look.  It´s against my reactionary prejudices, I´m ashamed to say.  I listened to him last Sunday morning in the radio.  His name is John Andersen (44), a carpenter, but also, for the last 14 years, a full time evangelist in a rather famous hippie quarter in Copenhagen called  “The Free City of Christiania” (not so romantic as it sounds).  He lives there on “Pusher Street” with his wife and kids.  The services are in an old stable and tea and coffee are served.  They often eat together.  The atmosphere is spontaneous, without pre-arranged rituals and without a certain church etiquette.  Just like in Jesus´ times.
 
His vision is ”to the Jews be as a Jew” and to the “Christiania”-people as one of them. It´s not enough to just deliver your message and then walk away, he contends.  The gospel has to be lived among those you want to reach.  “Do you mind dropping by?” he´s often asked by somebody  in deep need.  A Faroese captain once showed up.  One day he´d come home to find his adulterous wife together with another man.  His world fell apart, and he went to Christiania to drink and smoke himself away from everything.  “Little Jesus”, as John is called (not mockingly though!), had the opportunity to pray with that Faroese sailor who then and there re-found the faith of his childhood, which on the Faroese Islands is not a small thing. (This Atlantic community is the most Christian in the Danish kingdom).

This simple ”Little Jesus” wouldn´t leave my inner eyes. I´m thinking of our next visit to Fresno, Ca. in December.  One dear lady suggests that I try to minister among the poor people in the slum area of Fresno where she lives herself.  Her life is one big sermon to me.  She gives herself to many outcasts, and on her floor, on a mattress,  in her one room apartment some needy soul will often find shelter for the night.  But how useful can I be without living there myself?  However, I won´t decline her challenge either.

In San Diego, Ca., I got acquainted with a dear old pastor, - ”pastor von” they call him - , who many years ago started a gospel work among the poor children in Mexico.  I was with him there a couple of times.  He once said to a team I joined, ”Jesus always taught His surroundings”, and then he pointed at the fine middle class church where he´d been a co-pastor, ”This was not the surroundings of Jesus.” A little provocative maybe, but he had a point, and at least his heart was burning for those poor places where the church seems to have so little to do, but where Jesus has so much to do, for example through men like him and “Little Jesus” and others with a similar vision, prepared to live an obscure but rich life, often far away from the limelight.

Oct. 27, 2010

-jn-