So I heard a presentation yesterday from the Community Health Director of a local hospital. In her very interesting presentation about a wide range of subjects, she said that the hospital offered Blood Pressure and Heart Health Screenings about monthly. So, once a month, people would line up to come to the lobby of the hospital on a Saturday morning to have their blood pressure checked and other tests for free. Some people would come who had just been checked out the month before "Just to be sure." The hospital is glad to help anyone who needs it, but suspected that they weren't really reaching the people who needed it the most.
So, they started setting up the Screenings at Wal-Mart, just outside the McDonald's in the store. So, with the waftings of Big Macs, French Fries, and Chicken Nuggets in the air and the stampeding sounds of the masses collecting bargains at the Superstore, they offered the same tests. Here's what they discovered. In the same confines of the hospital, only 20% of people were in the danger zone physically. At the Wal Mart McDonald's 55% were in the danger zone. The Community Health servers had to go to the people to help them; the people who really needed the help weren't coming to them.
Seems like the Church could learn something from this example. It's only when we get out of our walls and meet people where they are do we find the people who really have the needs. Jesus said that he had come for the sick, not the well. We are most effective when we join him in that work.
1 comment:
This gets even more interesting when you consider what we mean by "walls." I would posit that a wall is anything that is off-putting, including being pedantic, or superior, or "other" than those to whom we wish to bring Christ. The liberal tolerance model is cockamamie, but the all-too-familiar Christian intolerance model ain't too great either. I would hope that there is a "middle way" to bring Christ to folks with an outstretched hand, a kind word, a deed, and a living witness rather than a fear-based sledgehammer and a pile of tracts. I'm interested in finding that middle way between allowing for multiple truths and scaring people into belief by fear of hell and damnation.
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