Life-Walking?

I’m not sure where the concept of life-walking came from. I think Grant English introduced it to us. I’m not sure what it is exactly. Practically, it became associated with LIFE groups (small home groups), being vulnerable, and, with youth, going to games and performances. Life-walking with a family whose basic needs are not being met and who come from a very different background with its own set of influences takes it to a whole new level.

How do you show love and meet needs but not enable people in the cycle of poverty? How much responsibility do we (and the church) have when the needs are great? Do we defer to the state to meet the basic needs of families? What do you do when the children are suffering and the adults are not doing what you think they ought to do? How do you discern the Father’s voice when making decisions about how to be involved? How do you reconcile the commands of Jesus to be compassionate and to give to all who ask and our own defensive attitudes to not be taken advantage of and independence? How do you deal with the observation that Jesus met the needs of all who came to him? Did he wrestle with the issues that we do in situations like this? How do you love exceptionally in these situations? How do you speak words of life and light in situations like this?

These are all hard core discipleship issues. Ones that will not come up until we step out. Ones that we cannot know the answers to until we actually step out and try to life-walk with them. That's the value of doing.