A Porch Dweller

Many years ago, I attended a workshop that focused on evangelization. The image they used to describe evangelization has stuck with me ever since. It is what I had in my mind as I was visioning for Firstfruits fifteen years ago.

That image was a house.

The house represented a place where God can be experienced. Where our faith can become more intentional and alive. A personal experience of God that leads to a lively lived faith is the ultimate goal of any evangelization effort.  In the house there were many rooms to go through. The aim of evangelizing was to ultimately get people through the rooms and into the kitchen, the heart of the house. A place of real transformation and commitment to the faith.

What really spoke to me personally, wasn’t a room in the house, it was when they talked about the porch.

Before anyone can make it into the house, through the rooms and into the kitchen, they first had to make a decision to come in off the sidewalk and on to the porch. That is the first step on the path to an intentional and living faith and often the most challenging.

I have always felt called to the porch when it comes to evangelizing. I have felt called to invite others to join me on the porch. I don’t feel comfortable in the kitchen. It takes a very different set of charisms or spiritual gifts to be working in the kitchen than to be a porch dweller. I don’t pretend to have the gifts of evangelization it requires to be working in the kitchen. I leave that up to the clergy and religious and others who have been called and gifted for that. What I do have are the gifts to make a comfy, safe, homey, and holy porch that just might be what someone needs for a while in order to make the next move into the house.

There are so many people wandering the sidewalks in search of that experience of God, that living faith. They might not realize that is what they are searching for, but it is, and they don’t know where to go. A move from the sidewalk to the kitchen is just too much.

We need more porches.

I hope I haven’t lost you with this convoluted “house of evangelization” analogy. It might sound a bit confusing. The bottom line is, God called me to build a porch and call it Firstfruits.

I hope you’ll stop by.

Joan