This afternoon, I met with Kevin Colón.  When we emailed last week about getting together, I suggested we meet on his turf – Superior.  I wanted to walk around with him and see the town through his eyes.  So we met at the Starbucks and walked down Coalton Road and then crossed over and walked on trail along Coal Creek and back.

Kevin is an amazing guy.  He has been the pastor of Cool River, a church he planted 8 years ago.   About 15,000 people live in Superior.  It’s really unique place.  I remember when no one lived there.  It’s all subdivisions of homes that all look alike sprinkled with townhomes and upscale apartments.   The average person has a Master’s degree.   When I asked Kevin, how many churches there in Superior.  He surprised me by saying, ‘two’.  Two among a town of 15,000?  And this is America?   I know the other one as well as its a home church led by another friend of ours.   Lest, we think that perhaps most people just commute somewhere else, Kevin informed me that nine of ten people in Superior don’t attend church at all.  It’s an incredible mission field.  I am sure most people don’t think church or God is relevant to their every day lives.

I don’t know how large Cool River is.  I  didn’t ask and it doesn’t matter.  Kevin sees all of Superior as his church.  More happens outside the church walls (or technically the walls of the school in which they meet) than in.   Last fall, Kevin shared with me of how one of his members introduced Kevin to a city official saying, “This is my pastor.”  And even though she had never met him, she replied, “Oh I know Kevin.  He’s every one’s pastor.”   That made his day.

Kevin and I talked about our partnership together in Mexico City.  We are both humbled of how God has lead us to this point and what already is happening.  Kevin was the first pastor we asked if they wanted to join us in creating a network of working together somewhere globally.  He was the sole one who took up the offer to go down last September to scout out the land.  (The pic is from that trip.) He was the first in our group, as we met throughout the fall, who said, “I want to partner with Rosi Orozco to help her end human trafficking”.   One of the highlights of my past year was rooming with him in Mexico City for a few days. (Memorable too as he snored like an old man.) We had some great discussions. I watched him in his element speaking Spanish and relating to people in a culturally-revelant way.  Really the highlight is getting to know Kevin and other pastors and Kingdom leaders in the area like Kevin.   It’s been a joy to run with them and I look forward to more time together.

Kevin is a great thinker.  He is deep.  He is a learner.  He loves the Lord.  He loves people.  There are no pretensions when you meet Kevin.  He isn’t trying to impress you or list off his credentials.  He is without guile.  He is real.

We ended back up at Starbucks and sat outside and just talked.  We talked about what it means to follow Jesus.  We talked about leaving behind old paradigms that limit us being able to follow Him because we are too caught up in ‘building a church / ministry’.   We talked about how even the body often uses things like ‘reaching the least of these’ as a ploy to get money from ‘the rich of these’.    We talked about how we just wanted to follow Jesus and live the way He did and care for the things He cares about.

It was a good afternoon.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 13th, 2010 at 8:26 pm and is filed under JACK, Missions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.