Pensees: A City of Refuge Church

A City of Refuge Church

I want to be a city of refuge church. Here the person who has really blown it can find what a person needs most in a time of misrepresentation, failure, and overwhelming grief: security, a second-chance, and justice. The city of refuge church displays the loving-kindness of God to men and women as they really are, and opens its doors wide to the person who has been assailed by the hasty judgment of the majority.

The City of Refuge was God’s idea. He knows that men don’t ever get the whole picture. He knows that men are very likely to make cutting judgments based upon one limited dimension of a multi-dimensional scenario. He knows that men love themselves more than they love others. He knows that men cannot empathize. He knows that men are easily biased in favor of their own agenda, people, culture, and tastes. He knows that sometimes what all men may call a murder is really an accident. He knows that often when all men cry, “guilty!” there is really innocence. He knows that a person judged by humans needs a place to flee.

The City of Refuge is God’s idea.

The City of Refuge Models:

- Patience
- Love
- Redemption. The place of the second chance.
- Welcome
- Justice. Discipline of sin when called for, but dealth with objectivity and patience.
- Christ

The City of Refuge Illustrates Christ in that:

It is available
- 6 cities, 3 on each side of Jordan, equal distance. No part of Palestine was more than 30 miles away – a day’s journey.

It is accessible
- The principle roads to the city were always kept open

I want to be a “City of Refuge Church.”

*Penned in my diary several years ago