Bank on Commercial St. is Robbed, Christian Responds

a knife robbery

Our church services on Sunday prepare us to be light to our communities.  We celebrate stories of God working in His people every time we gather, and God commands us in the Psalms to declare His works publicly.  Here is a story that inspires me.

Last Friday (September 21st) a man with a knife walked into Umpqua Bank at about 10 am.  The robbery took place about two blocks from McKinley Elementary School where my friend, April, has three of her five children attending during the school day.  When the bank was robbed, the Elementary went on lockdown for about an hour; in addition so did South Salem High School and Howard Street Charter School.

The man escaped on foot into the local neighborhood and the police could not locate the man.  If you have any information about this situation, please contact the police.  Here is the article in the Statesman Journal.

School let out later that afternoon and April's children walked home and were animatedly talking about how their school had been on lockdown.  The kids knew that the robbery took place where their family did their banking.  April's heart was moved by her kids and most especially because she regularly goes into the bank and knows the people who work there pretty well.

God moved in April's heart to do something about it.  :)  She told me later when they came over for pizza and a movie that night.  And she doesn't yet know that I'm writing this blog post.  Her story was presented to me rather briefly and with a ton of humility, and I might get some of the details wrong of how it went.  Hopefully she will read here soon and can tell a little more of the story of how it went.

She got her kids all "cutified," all five of them, ages 10 years to 10 months old.  She made a homemade card and wrote a scripture in it and also got some balloons.  The whole troop walked into the bank.  She said to them, "I know what happened to you this morning and how horrible it was, and I thought you could use some cheering up."

The scripture was Isaiah 40:10.  "Fear not, for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand."

Umpqua Bank usually has about three people working in front but at this point there was a full staff of about eight people and they were all on edge and watchful.  They might have been called into work because of what happened.  April said that one woman cried when she interacted with April and her family.

This is the sort of love that transforms culture and helps bridge belief for people who would turn to Jesus if only someone would lead them to Him.  I'm so impressed!!!  I have so many excuses why I don't think I should share Christ publicly.  April's example has renewed my heart about how the gospel changes lives, changes communities, changes cities.  I want to celebrate with her the hope Christ had planned from the beginning of time to bring to the people at this bank.  Even acts of thoughtful love without an accompanying scripture are a touch of God in this world.

I'm reminded of an article I read at www.vergenetwork.org about a business that was impacted by a tragic suicide of one of their employees.  Two Christians there started seeing God open the hearts of their fellow co-workers who were looking for hope.  A pastor of a local church took a chance and started meeting in the gym facility at this company with these two Christians.   It was really simple.  They sang praise music with a guitar.  Their coworkers came.  People were believing in Christ for eternal life.  Attendance kept growing from 10 to 20 and finally 100 employees.  The pastor went back to his local church which had been more or less stagnant in growth for several years and resigned because God was calling him to pastor this new church plant, born in a business.

Can there be a church in a bank?  How about in a gym?  Who lives for this sort of thing?  God does!  Anything can happen when we plant the gospel!  How can we join in the great commission?  Here are a couple of thoughts.

10 Simple Ways to be Missional

"Over and over again when people begin to engage a life lived on mission they wonder or ask, “How would I ever have the time to DO all of this?!” But God has designed our lives in such a way that we already live in a rhythm of opportunities to both display and proclaim the gospel. It is not a matter of adding new things to our life; it is about living with increasing gospel intentionality. We must shift our thinking from “Additional to Intentional”." - Caesar Kalinowski

Meet Lauren

This morning I met Lauren.  She came into the auto repair place and sat down beside me and my son.  She's in her 60s, and is holding the cash in her hand she's going to use to pay for her car's repair.  The money is sticking straight out from her hand and she's sitting there with a face of concern.  I asked her about her car's problem and I cracked a joke, and she actually laughed at it for some time which is cool because I'm not that funny.  She said she had come all the way from Independence hoping that they would be able to fix it and that they had helped her before by charging her such a little price.  I said it was a far way to come and she said that she had a daughter who lived in town.  She said she comes in to help her two children a lot but they do not come out to Independence to see her, and she looked sad but trying to hide it.  I said do you have someone you can call if your car has trouble?  She didn't answer.  I said I think everybody needs a few support people.  Would her children help her if she needed something?  She said no.  She said her comfort is in knowing that at least she's possibly a better person for being thoughtful toward others.  I said well how about I give you my phone number.  And if you need help you'll have someone to call.  She waved her hand away at me like I was being too much.  Then she lowered her head trying to hide a few tears about to fall.

I gently took her hand and said softly, "honey I didn't mean to make you upset, I'm sorry."  She said, "No it's ok, that sounds nice I didn't think I could meet anyone who would be nice like that."  She smiled.  I said, "Really, call me," as I was headed out the door.  She said she really did not have a sense of family with anyone, to answer my real question about her kids.  I said, "Well you do now.  Call me sometime soon."  She said, "That would be nice, even if it's just to visit, I don't have any friends."  She was happy I could see, to say that out loud even though she felt some shame in admitting it.

Because she didn't mention a husband but she did mention children, I'm assuming she's a widow.  And she's a poor widow.  I can't help but think of God's Word : "True religion is this, to look after orphans and widows in their time of need."  (James 1)

She needs something a little larger than I can give her.  I can offer her my husband and my children, my family, but she needs a sense of family that's about extended-family size.  It would be a lot for me to serve her and love her the way that she deserves, but if I could invite her into a family setting, it would be so neat to see the bold words I said in faith about having a family now, come to fruition, with many people loving her, serving her, each person being unique in how they do that.

I'm praying right now that there would be a family of Christians who will step out to manifest Jesus to this dear woman.  I want her to not be taken advantage of, to be served selflessly.  I want her to experience the love of God in an unconditional way so that she has a safe place to understand what Jesus Christ has done for her - that He is that "better person" just as she knows is the right thing to do :)

Would you like to meet Lauren?