Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Moved to Move: Living Near Douglass Park


I am happy to announce that Ali and I will be moving in May of this year to a new house! Before some of you get the wrong idea, we are still renting the house. We are not buying the house as of right now, but we are not discounting the idea in the long-run.

Some of you might remember that at the beginning of the internship Ali and I were spending a significant chunk of time down at Douglass Park. We ended up transitioning to a new focus for the short-term and we began focusing our efforts on reaching out to the international community of Columbia. We made this transition due to the lack of other followers of Christ being called to the area, but we have never stopped thinking about who God is calling us to reach out to if we were to live in Columbia for the rest of our lives. At this point we are unsure what the timeline will be for us to start a Missional Community (small groups at Karis Church) in the Douglass Park neighborhood, but the timeline is secondary to be faithful to God's calling on our lives.

After plenty of conversations - and honestly some arguments - Ali and I have decided to move to the Douglass Park neighborhood. Many people have given us weird looks whenever we say that Douglass Park is the area that we want to live near and spend a majority of our time. This reaction is largely due to the stereotype of what happens at the park: violence and drug use. 

I do not blame anyone for thinking that Douglass Park is not the safest neighborhood in Columbia, but as a Christian I am called to go to the people that God calls me to. The neighborhood's statistics are quite average as any other neighborhood in Columbia, but Douglass Park gets more attention because it is closer downtown and because of its racial diversity. 

All that being said, here are a couple of reasons Ali and I felt moved to move near to Douglass Park:

Called to Love

Christians all around the world are called to a radical love for others because of the radical love that was shown to us by our Savior Jesus Christ on the cross for our sins. God's death on the cross was a radical display of loving sinners, and if I am to follow Him closely I am to demonstrate His love to the world. Moving to the Douglass Park neighborhood doesn't seem too radical, even if it is the most dangerous place in the entire world, when placed against God the Father sending the Son to die in the hands of those He came to save.

We are called to love as God loves us.

Called to Believe and Proclaim

We are all called to have faith in Jesus - His perfect life, His substitutionary death for us and our sins on the cross, and His resurrection from the dead. Jesus was faithful His entire life. He was faithful to His Father's plan by dying on the cross. He was faithful to send us the Holy Spirit. He will be faithful to come back. I have no reason to not believe Him when He said that He would be with me as I go out to share the good news of Jesus to Douglass Park and the world. God wants us to go out and make disciples, baptize them, and teach them the truth found in Christ. He will be faithful, so this is just me trying to be faithful to what He has called me to do.

We are called to believe in Jesus and go into Douglass Park to proclaim the good news of salvation found only in Jesus Christ.

Called to Christ
 
Ultimately, I am called to love God in all facets of life. I am called to seek to be faithful to following Christ to whatever He might be calling my family to. I am not held accountable to Douglass Park. I am held accountable by God, and I want to see what God will do with Ali and I in this area of Columbia. 

We are called to follow Jesus.

We are very excited to see Jesus known deeply in our own hearts and in the hearts of the people that make up the Douglass Park community.

God is good and gracious.

Jacob Luis Gonzales

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