Who is at the Door?
By Doug Bing, Washington Conference president
Do you have an alarm system?
Some folks have cameras pointed at each of their doors that sense movement and send an alert to your phone. We have a few cameras at our house, and the alerts get annoying as the phone goes off, and you review the footage only to see a spider crawl slowly across the camera lens.
An additional alarm system we have at our house is a dog.
The dog will hear something they don’t like outside, stand to their feet, and listen carefully. If the sound continues, they may emit a low growl. If the sound gets closer or someone knocks on the door, the barking begins. They want to make sure that we heard the sound or the knock. They race to the door with eagerness to see if it’s a friend or stranger, all while barking the entire time. When the door opens, however, all bluster of bravery goes out the window, and they just want to be friends.
When we think about the Washington Conference territory, we need to be a bit alarmed at the needs we see all around us.
There are people right outside our door who need Jesus. In 1902, Ellen White wrote,
The heathen in the cities at our doors have been strangely neglected. Organized effort should be made to save them. We are not to work to convert the heathen who are in the midst of us, those living within the shadow of our doors. . . We all need to be wide awake that, as the way opens, we may advance the work in the large cities. We are far behind in following the light given us to enter the cities. . . We are to continue working until a church is organized and a humble house of worship built.
It seems at times that we wring our hands at the people outside our doors and the things they may be doing.
We need more than just the wringing of hands. We need to realize that the same Jesus who is knocking on our heart’s door (Revelation 3) is also knocking on theirs. Jesus is giving us the alarm that there are people all around us just outside our doors. He is knocking on their doors. He is knocking on ours and asking us to not only let Him in but to go outside our doors and talk to those around us and share God’s love with them. We should be racing with eagerness to see who is outside the door and just be friends. As we become friends, we can invite them to newly planted churches or to existing churches.