Why Abandoned?

Let me explain our mission in Baltimore.  We are developing our ministry around the idea of “Abandoned.”  First, what does abandoned mean?  The Compact Oxford Dictionary says, “To desert or leave permanently” or to “give up completely.”  Merriam Webster goes into more detail: “to withdraw from often in the face of danger or encroachment” and “to withdraw protection, support, or help from.”  If you pull out the Thesaurus and look up abandon or abandoned you will feel the weight of its meaning: forsaken, deserted, discarded, dumped, neglected, thrown away, thrown out, emptied, and withdrawn.  Abandoned carries the idea of being completely and absolutely forsaken, rejected, and despised.  It is a word full of pain and despair.  For those who are abandoned, there is no hope.  They are the rejected ones.

Now if you visit Baltimore you will see numerous abandoned houses.  We call them “abandonminiums”.  Countless city blocks are laden with empty houses.  These once great city blocks have been ravaged by the reality of drugs, violence, and HIV/Aids.  I don’t think it is an over-exaggeration to say that these city blocks serve as the devil’s playground.  How has this happened?

Sadly, houses are not the only abandoned buildings in Baltimore.  Countless churches have abandoned the city.  When the going got tough the Christians and their churches left the city.  The suburbs offered an apparently safer environment than the drugs and violence offered by the city streets.  They proved more comfortable.  Instead of seeking to transform the city by the power of the gospel the churches handed over the city to the prince of this world.

The empty church buildings stand as a testimony of God’s people to the city.  It is a testimony of abandonment and rejection.  When followers of Jesus Christ left the city a vacuum was created which has been filled with everything but Jesus Christ.  Drugs, HIV/AIDS, murder, misery, emptiness, and hopelessness are the marks of an abandoned city.

Our greatest desire is to return the gospel of Jesus Christ to Baltimore.  The answer to abandonment is offered by Jesus Christ.  The opposite of abandonment is adoption.  Through the power of the gospel, lives once rejected and forsaken are accepted and re-created.  By returning the gospel of Jesus Christ to the cities of this nation we are rebuilding our testament that Christ is in the business of adopting those once abandoned.

The message of adoption is heralded to the city by the church.  The church in the city shows the people of the city that Christ has not abandoned them.  The church stands in the wilderness crying out that Jesus Christ is the Lord of this city and the gates of hell will not prevail against Christ and his church.  This is the message of hope and acceptance offered by the transforming gospel of Jesus Christ.  This is why the church must return the gospel to the cities.  This is our passion, to return the gospel of Jesus Christ to Baltimore.  To proclaim a message from abandonment to adoption; from forsaken to accepted; and rejection to reception.  Only the gospel of Christ can transform an abandoned city into a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.