Incarnational Ministry. This is one of the most impacting and life changing concepts I’ve learned at seminary. Incarnational Ministry is what Jesus modeled for us. He left His home and moved to a new one. In some ways, He gave up His identity in order to identify with us. He gave up His rights, His privileges, and His will in order to live among us and serve us. He focused on what we needed most. And he worked to meet that. So when we minister to people, we need to have the same attitude. (This may sound familiar if you’ve ever read Philippians chapter 2.) We need to immerse ourselves in the world of the people we’re serving. We can’t only go be among them when we feel like it or when it’s convenient to us. Jesus didn’t move back and forth between heaven and earth. He stayed here until His task was finished. He never stopped being like us or identifying with us throughout His entire ministry. This convicts me of all the times, past and current, when I chose to minister to people at an arm’s length away. The times when I chose to cling to the parts of my identity that would have been better lost. And when I chose to stay in the bubble of what was familiar instead of break into a place, an uncomfortable place no doubt, that would have made an eternal impact in someone’s life. Jesus had no place for that kind of thinking in His ministry. And there should be no place for that kind of thinking in mine. If the sinful Savior was able to dig into the filth and messiness of a fallen world, how much more should I, a saved sinner, be quick to go and reach into the filth and messiness of another person? I’m so thankful to be part of the CARES ministry! It’s the perfect opportunity to put all of this into practice. CARES is a ministry within apartment communities. My roommate, Bobbie, and I are missionaries to our neighbors. The management gives us the responsibility of planning all of the social events for the apartment. Through that, we build relationships and use the open doors to share the gospel and help people get connected to churches. I love my apartment community! It’s definitely not an environment I’m used to. The day I moved in, I thought to myself- ‘How am I ever going to fit in here?’ The demographics are very diverse. We have babies all the way up to retired couples. We have students, working professionals, and unemployed. Some of my neighbors drive cars so nice that I’m afraid to go near them- just in case I accidentally scratch it or something. And then some of my neighbors live off of heavy government assistance. Sadly enough, the one thing we don’t have much of is fathers. It’s rare to have so much diversity within one community. But then again, this is Dallas. The neighbors we see the most are the ones on the lower end of the economic scale. They are the ones that tend to come out to our events. I have a couple of theories for this. They probably appreciate and need the free meals more than anyone else. And since they don’t have much money, they have to stay home a lot because they can’t afford to do anything. So they tend to be more bored and lonely. And they’ll come hang out with us. The benefit of this is that they’re clearly needy. They know it. They don’t have enough money to buy their happiness, or more accurately, to numb their pain. So they’re open to start a relationship. And we’ve found that they are more open to talk about spiritual things and the gospel. Whereas some of our other neighbors have the means to distract themselves. So this is where I live. And this middle-class Mid-western white girl doesn’t always know how to identify with many of my inner-city Dallas ghetto neighbors. But I’m learning. I’m learning how to part with the pieces of my identity that are actually a hindrance to the gospel. I’m learning to plan an extra 15 minutes for my walk to the mailbox just in case I pass by a neighbor I can strike up a conversation with. I’m learning to give up my privacy and my rights and my privileges and my comforts in order to present Jesus in a way that my neighbors will understand. Putting this into practice changes the way I take out the trash. It changes the way I walk out my front door. It changes my schedule. It changes the things I commit my time to. And I have a feeling that this experience is going to change forever the way I live my life. | 
