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�Break Our Hearts So Wide Open that the Whole World Falls in�

 By Eleanor L. Colvin, TAC Director of Communications

Rev. Prof. Peter Storey knows first hand that a church “broken open” by God can be used to bless a broken world. The former leader of the Central Methodist Mission in South Africa, which once housed 1,000 Zimbabwean refugees (at least one of whom gave birth there and at least one whom died there), is intimately acquainted with the pain of the world and the powerful, healing passion of the church.

Sharing the text of the four friends who so desired healing for a paralyzed friend that they lowered him through the roof of a house in which Jesus was preaching, Storey noted the intentionality of mission.

“Risk-taking mission doesn’t just happen,” he said. “In fact, if I know anything about the church, it rarely happens at all. The default posture of the church, it seems to be a rather defensive one, not a missional one – and certainly not risk taking.”

Since few are busy taking risks, there is plenty of time to be “quite obsessive,” he said, about saving, preserving and protecting the church.

“Preservation and risk taking don’t mix very well,” said the former South African Bishop who now is a professor at Duke Divinity School. “Risk-taking mission won’t happen until we learn the difference between doing church and being the church. And to learn that, God has to break us open – wide open.”

“Breaking open” makes the room required for growth.

“When we begin to make space for others inside ourselves, when we let others take up residence in our soul – mission cannot happen until we make that space,” Storey said. “Not just space for people like us, but for those people who need us, for those people who disturb our sleep.”

Storey counted the believers’ request – “come into my heart Jesus” – to be a dangerous and disturbing thing to say, since Jesus will inevitably answer with a question of his own: “Can I bring my friends?”

“I start looking at Jesus’ friends and I’m not pleased with what I see, because they’re not the kinds of people who would be on my guest list,” Storey said. “Lord, can’t it be just you and me? [And, he answers]: ‘Love me, love my friends, and that’s not negotiable.’”

Because it’s never negotiable, God will sometimes send Jesus’ friends “crashing through the roofs” of churches where the faithful are busy – like those in Capernaum – listening to Jesus and “doing church.”

“God is in the business of inviting the church to be broken open for God’s world, because it’s God’s world for which God gave Jesus,” Storey said. “Who or what needs to crash through this roof to get your attention? Who will be the faithful friends? In what way does the church need to be broken open?”

“I was in the Fifth Ward this morning in Houston,” Storey continued. “It’s a million miles from The Woodlands, but it’s just down the road. I wonder if that might be a clue as to who or what needs to break through our roofs.”

Comparatively, Storey pointed to the incomparable wealth of the United States and the unfathomable poverty throughout the world: “I wonder if that might be a clue as to who or what needs to break through our roofs.”

In an act of repentance and obedience to God’s will, the people of the Texas Annual Conference prayed in unison for the forgiveness of the church’s collective sins and in preparation for the new thing God is doing among his people: Send us your Holy Spirit, to break open the churches of the Texas Annual Conference, oh Lord, we pray. The church prayed as Mother Theresa prayed: “Lord, break my heart so wide open that the whole world falls in.”