How do we follow Jesus in being non-violent and not be vigilantes and still provide security in a context, like a third world country, where impunity and organized crime go unchecked?

When is it okay to throw people out of church? Please comment

You may or may not believe it is right or wrong to exclude someone from fellowship, but comment.

So, my wife and I have been translating at this free clinic for the uninsured lately. It's supposedly a Christian thing, but no staff really talk about Jesus at all with patients. They are too busy rushing the patients in and out. Very much an unintentional thing.

But my wife and I have recently seen a great opportunity to rub shoulders with the poor and introduce them to Jesus. We pray with them. We bring them Bibles. We talk and joke with them. They are no longer a "them" to us. Among the immigrant population that we work with, there are so many with broken hearts. Many have left wife and kids to come get their share of the riches of America. Many have seen hard times. And in the absense of their culture, they have a vast emptiness and lack of passion. Fear. Fear of my government. Fear of being taken advantage of. Fear. The one thing I see in their eyes and words is fear and a poverty that runs deeper than money.

Holism advocates in the missions community will sometimes talk about how half-done medical missions are among tribal peoples who recognize a spiritual world. The advocates talk about how the tribesmen know that their physical bodies are cured somehow by the magic of modern medicine, but they still sense a deep-seated spiritual wound and seek absolution from it by way of their religion or magic. We Westerners are so prone to just 'get it done' that we forget that people are deep, complex beings who require deep, complex healing - not merely numbers to chalk up on the missions report.

So, we feel the Spirit leading us, pushing us, encouraging us and going with us to do spiritual and emotional healing coupled with the physical healing. We talk to our patients a lot, take their numbers, do things for them without the clinic people knowing about it... mwew hahahahahaha!

Now we're thinking of starting a church among these people. I don't know that there is an 'organic' church among Latinos here. I don't know if there is anything 'missional' about churches to Latinos here. But I suspect that Jesus will start it or add to it soon, and hopefully He'll drag us along for the ride. The Church is sorely needed here. Jesus should be lifted up among these people. We want to see them exalted from their low place to where Jesus wants them to be.

Pray for us, brothers and sisters, as we seek the Lord's will on if this is the time and place to begin this work in Him.

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by the way, the title was just tongue-in-cheek. i dislike attractionalism just as much as you all do.