Brenda excitedly exclaimed, “Oh, we have just the ticket, sir.” Then, she proceeded to carefully bring out two dark blue velvet trays from the bottom corner shelf. By the dust covering the hinged glass lid, it was obvious that these were not in high demand.
“Now sir, we have both kinds. We have the plain ones, and the ones with the little man on them. Most are in 14K gold, although this row is in 10K. Any one of these catch your eye?”
Luca had to take a step back to gather himself. The innocence of the “little man” description almost knocked the wind out of him. The idea of the cross was as familiar to Brenda as the Antarctic ice shelves would be to a villager in Papua New Guinea. This was deeply troubling. How had he, a pastor’s son raised in the streets of Philly, missed something so fundamental? How had he missed the fact that the good news that his church so passionately preached about and so energetically sang about never seemed to walk its way across the street? Why hadn’t he noticed before that the gospel was locked selfishly behind stone and cement—a world away from those who needed it the most?
All that Luca could manage was a long, slow, and demoralized sigh.
(Once You See, Pages 57-58)
RELATED: A Novel Approach to Tackling Common Temptations in the Western Church
Interested in a next step? Jeff Christopherson, Lance Ford, and Rich Robinson will be facilitating a series of learning cohorts on the Kingdom Correctives to the Seven Temptations of the Western Church. If you would like information on this, contact mercedes@movementleaderscollective.com
