This is a mea culpa, of sorts -- a repentance for allowing the Good News of Jesus Christ, which Gospel Mission has been promoting for nearly 85 years, to get clouded with a political matter.
The CBC is running a feature today on the tenth anniversary
of InSite, the supervised drug-injection facility in Vancouver. Initially, it
was located in 327 Carrall Street, on the ground floor of the building that has
housed Gospel Mission since the 1940s. That same site is now The Lord's Rain; I would call that a case of God redeeming an entire building -- bravo for the ironies He sends us!
A CBC reporter called us a couple of weeks ago, asking if
she could interview one of the proponents of InSite at The Lord’s Rain -- going “back to where it all began”, as it were. But we turned her down, and in the process
gave her an earful about our opposition to the facility and its concept. Certainly, we've made no secret of our feelings about the facility.
She called me yesterday, asking for our statement on the
opposition to it. Barry, Janet and I had come up with an agreed-on message: that we see no good in InSite and that the money spent on the
facility would have been better spent on recovery programs and detox
facilities. That's the message I delivered to her.
But on reflection, I realize that I missed an opportunity to say not what we’re against, but what we are for.
(I have to be careful here, lest I appear to be throwing Barry and Janet under the bus: I did help craft the message and none of us raised this point at the time; but, while I can't speak for them, I believe that, if any of us had raised it, we would have agreed on it.)
So for the record, what are we for?
- We are for lives turning around
- We are for second chances
- We are for healing (not just reducing harm but eliminating it)
- We are for hope
- We are for Christ, because it’s in Him – and only Him – that all these things can be achieved.
Anything that doesn’t provide for that is in opposition. (There’s no shortage of things to be against these days: Jesus gives us a
focus on something to be for.)
There are many things that cannot be fixed quickly and can’t
be fixed at all, using human strength, but with Jesus, anything is possible.
Jesus is the one-size-fits-all solution because He is exactly what every one of
us needs to address our unique situation. Whether it’s drug addiction, mental
illness, poverty, bad decisions leading to bad situations; even a general
emptiness in life – the feeling that something is missing – He is the only Way.
Our job is to promote that message: a positive message – not
the negative one of what we’re against.
The Lord’s Rain has accomplished a lot because of that
positive message and God’s Will for people to know His Son and be healed of all things.
And that's what we're for.
