Missional Living - it might just change YOUR life!

When we moved to the Boston area last summer, we came here with the desire and intention of living missionally in this city. We wanted to engage the culture, know our neighbors, and love our community. That is still our desire and our intention.

This is the story of the result of one of our efforts to live missionally and love those around us. It is also a story of how God unexpectedly blessed and enriched our lives through an unlikely relationship.

We live on a small, private alley in the Inman Square neighborhood of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and on our alley there are four homes. We live in an attached home with one next door neighbor, and directly across from our homes is another attached house of two separate homes. Over the summer, we developed relationships with all three of our neighbors - a single woman in her 40's, a 30-something married couple, and a divorcee in her 70's - and even gathered together with them for wine socials. In October, the divorcee, An, left for the winter as she does most years and rented her house out to a couple from Denmark named Thomas and Ellen.

And this is the story of Thomas and Ellen. Or rather, the story of Thomas and Ellen and Kip and Beth and Lucy.

Thomas and Ellen are in their late 50's/early 60's. He is a professor of  hydrodynamics (or something equally as complicated! I'll have to ask Kip again to make sure I got that right) in Denmark and she is a linguist. They came to Boston for 6 months while Thomas was on sabbatical from the University in Denmark to conduct research and teach at MIT.

We met them when they arrived and our paths crossed briefly a few times as we we were coming or going from our homes. Kip and I felt like we should reach out to them, per our missional goal, so we decided to invite them to our home for Thanksgiving dinner. We had also invited several other people we thought might need a place to go on Thanksgiving Day. Everyone else already had plans. And so did Thomas and Ellen. A friend of theirs from Connecticut would be coming up with his wife to share Thanksgiving with them.

We were a little sad. We had great intentions of being missional during Thanksgiving, but no one needed  us to! The night after we invited them over for thanksgiving, Kip and I got a babysitter and went out on a date. We went to a small restaurant in our neighborhood and while there we ran into Thomas and Ellen. They thanked us profusely for the invitation and then asked us to join them and their friends for Thanksgiving dinner.

It was not our first desire, but once we (meaning, I) came to terms with the fact that I would not be hosting a Thanksgiving like I had hoped to do, we happily accepted Thomas and Ellen's invitation to have Thanksgiving at their house. And, boy, are we glad we did!

We found Thomas and Ellen to be gracious, kind, intelligent, humorous, interesting people. We had a lovely Thanksgiving with them and their friends and it was that evening that our real relationship began.

As I said, Ellen is a linguist. She speaks 11 different languages and can read 13 languages. She has read the bible in its original languages. She is a fascinating woman. She also has a masters degree in theology, and refers to herself as a theologian. On Thanksgiving, she described herself to Kip in that way and they engaged in a discussion about its meaning as Thomas and the friends were busy in the kitchen and I perused the amazing floor to ceiling bookshelves in the house while eavesdropping on Kip and Ellen's conversation and praying about it.

Kip asked, "Do you consider yourself religious at all?"

And she responded with, "I find myself going in and out of religion, and whenever I am out, and I am always trying to get back in."

Kip invited her to attend church with us, and she immediately responded enthusiastically and positively. The rest of the evening turned into a wonderful Thanksgiving memory for us.

A few weeks later Ellen went to church with us. We asked her if Thomas would also like to come, but she responded in a light-hearted, joking way that "He's a heathen!" In Denmark, there is a state church, and every minister preaches from the same text each sunday. She was fascinated that our pastor chooses what he will speak about. Ellen described the Danish church as "cold" and thoroughly enjoyed the genuine and warm and (although she would not describe it this way) Christ-like love of our church. I do not remember what was preached, but I do remember that it led to conversations on the way home in which we were able to lay out the message of The Gospel to Ellen.

Over the next weeks our relationship with Thomas and Ellen deepened. During a snowstorm when Kip was out of town, Thomas shoveled my porch and Lucy and I went to their house for an afternoon tea. They offered to be Lucy's "substitute grandparents" and babysit so we could go on date nights, and we felt perfectly comfortable letting them do so. They absolutely love Lucy and she developed a sincere affection for them and would always light up when Thomas and Ellen were around. In December, we were surprised and honored when they invited us to their house for a traditional Danish Christmas Eve dinner. Their children, who are our age, were in town and they wanted us to meet them and become a part of their family for the night. We were happy to do so!

Our Christmas night experience was unforgettable. That night, we were a part of their family and they were a part of ours. We participated in traditional Danish festivities, some of which we have decided to adopt as customs in our own home. Thomas asked Kip to read the Christmas story, and then we enjoyed tea by candlelight as we discussed Christianity and faith and grace. And Thomas told us, that based on Ellen's description, he wanted to attend church with us. This was huge! Thomas had not entered a church in more than 20 years!

Thomas and Ellen, with Lucy and their children, Freida and Neils, and Christmas Eve

A few weeks later, Thomas and Ellen both came to church. Our friend Joie, who has had a rough life and has experienced grace and love and transformation at the foot of the cross, preached that day. His sermon could not have been better timed. He spoke about faith and the difficulty that men sometimes have in accepting God's free gift of grace and of the power of the cross to transform lives. He spoke from his heart, and it touched our hearts and the hearts of Thomas and Ellen. After the service, during lunch at our house, Thomas asked deep questions about what he had heard. He did not agree with everything, but he was seeking to understand it all. Seeds were planted that raised questions to ponder in his heart and mind. Two weeks later, Thomas and Ellen attended church with us again, this time to see Lucy be dedicated.

It was the last time they came to church with us, but not the last time we spent time together. They celebrated Lucy's birthday with us, we shared meals together, Lucy and I spent time at Ellen's table chatting about all kinds of things, Ellen spent time in my kitchen teaching me how to make bread. We shared life together and we were each other's family.

Lucy LOVES Thomas and Ellen

They returned to Denmark a couple of weeks ago. Did they accept Christ as their Savior before leaving? No. Was their view and understanding of Christ and His Church transformed before they left? I think that it was. Will they accept Christ as their Savior? I pray that they do. I don't know what will happen in their lives, but I trust that seeds of truth were planted. God is an omnipotent God who moves in the hearts and minds of His created beings. It is not I who save people by how I relate to them or what I say to them. I am called to plant seeds, but it is Christ who saves.

Our friendship with Thomas and Ellen began because we had a desire to live missionally. It was a task we were trying to accomplish. And in the midst of trying to be missional, we encountered real people with real stories. And our hearts were transformed. We put a face and real human emotions on what it means to live missionally. And at the other end of our missional project, we found a couple who became dear friends and whom we learned to love. And it is our love for them that now spurs us on to continue to live missionally - with them, across an ocean, and with others whom we encounter near us - because missional living has become a real, breathing thing to us, not just a task to complete. Living missionally isn't a task. It is living in relationship.

At the end of their time in the U.S., Thomas and Ellen found dear friends who they respect and who challenged their view of Christianity. And we found dear friends whose friendship we will always cherish. And that is the story of Thomas and Ellen and Kip and Beth and Lucy.

I do not know how it will end, or where it will go. I do not know how God will continue to use this experience in their lives; or really, how He will use it in ours. But I know that He will. And I know that God is all-powerful, and it is He who works in the hearts and minds of men.

This was taken minutes before Thomas and Ellen left for the airport to return to Denmark

I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God's grace given me through the working of his power. Although I am less than the least of all God's people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence. I ask you, therefore, not to be discouraged because of my sufferings for you, which are your glory.For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. Ephesians 2:7-20