I was blessed during our recent block party in the South Bronx by being reunited with one of the former drug dealers from our community.  I sat in The Harvest Center with him and his girlfriend, talking about their lives and what God can do. We wept as they wept over their pain, and we cried tears of joy as they prayed to begin a new start with Christ.  Another former dealer who has been clean and living out of state for several years is in the Bronx again and has spent time with me in prayer and discussing God’s Word and his destiny. God has filled my heart with love for him. He, too, is striving to make right choices.

As the girlfriend talked about how bad Johnny (not his real name) used to be, I mentioned how well he and the other drug dealers accepted us when we came to the South Bronx. Johnny said, “We didn’t have a choice.” I didn’t understand, so I asked what he meant.

“We didn’t have a choice because you set up shop on our block and you weren’t leaving.”

What a powerful statement about incarnational ministry in the inner city!  The streets of our community in the South Bronx have changed because, by God’s grace, people have changed. It started with someone “setting up shop” and, no matter the opposition, even death threats, not giving up. It took years, even eight to ten years, of patient endurance and unconditional love for some people to change. Transformation is not always overnight. But when it’s God, it’s real.

There are many more young men and women like these in inner cities around our nation. To see true change in our cities, the body of Christ must get out of the doors of our churches and “set up shop” on the streets of our cities, empowering chosen people to honor Christ, make right choices, pursue their destinies, and bring radical transformation to their own communities through the power of our radical, holy God who sets up shop wherever we invite Him.

“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

John 1:14