I am not one for ostentatious public exhibitions of my faith. Not since the formative days “witnessing” on my high school senior lawn at Mission Viejo High School, I’ve shied away from confrontational Christianity. I’m not embarrassed of my faith. I have no problem speaking in groups or making presentations in front of large audiences (i mean, come on, back in the heyday I played a couple songs, solo, at the gigantic Saturday night concerts that used to be held at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa). I guess it comes down to having walked away from my faith and then coming back, I find that my faith is something that I prefer to communicate in an atmosphere where personal information can be comfortably exchanged with people I’ve become close enough to allow for this kind of conversation.** So when I signed up for one of my church’s “Serve Day” activities I was cautiously curious about this business of walking around the neighborhood, meeting and praying for/with people we were going to meet.

I’ve been meeting with my church friends the past month of Saturdays to pray for the city (at the community center) and walk the neighborhood picking up trash. It’s been good fellowship time and working out my faith, taking it another step from doing something more than just talking about the needs of the neighborhood. So this Serve Day was different in that we stepped out intending to pray for the neighborhoods as we encountered them and, thanks to the friendliness of my partners, Hoa and her mom, we met a bunch of people in the neighborhood and local park and got a great opportunity to talk and pray with them. This was not confrontational Christianity but Faith walking the neighborhood, touching, talking and listening to ones neighbors.

As much as I’ve entertained the idea of taking my amp out to some street corner and just belt out a set of my music, I’m not going to just go out and do that next Saturday. I’m not even that comfortable taking out the ol’ guitar and doing random music around the beach campfire (but that’s probably a different story). But after walking, talking, listening and praying for my neighbors, I could really see doing it again next Saturday. It was so much fun and so real. I really surprised myself with how much I liked it and how good it felt to exercise my Faith beyond my small group of Christian friends. Amazing. JBB

**(this journal being a bit of an exception to this feeling, though there’s a certain comfort in the anonymity afforded to writer and reader of blogs on the web, or you already know me and so the point is moot).

Music: Love Of God from the album “iWorship – Vol. 2 (Disc 2)” by MercyMe