What's that on the horizon?

Last night I entered a new, strange and dark world. A world full of drugs, alcohol, violence, abuse, anger, flashing lights, and Red Bull. This is the world of the Street Chaplain, more accurately it's the world of Chaplain Watch as they patrol the streets of Brisbane's CBD and Fortitude Valley.

My night started at 11pm in the vacant lot behind Brisbane City Church where I was met by the Chaplain watch car, kitted up with torches, radios, special Chaplain Watch shirt and surgical gloves (yes, they were used) before being whisked away into the night. A quick run through some of the more important procedures is about the extent of the training given and a quick call around on the UHF lets people know we are out and about; people like the taxi rank officials and security personnel through the Valley and CBD.

It's amazing how many people know us and recognition a bunch of Chaplains have on the streets. Well I thought it was amazing. Every taxi rank official and security guard, every bouncer and door girl, every street sweeper driver and council official seems to know us, most by name! I quickly realise this is the net result of 5 years of the chaplains being on the streets every friday and saturday night, earning these peoples respect.

The first few hours were reletively quiet. We checked on a few people who had passed out on the street or in parks and moved them on, hopefully to home and not the next pub. Then we got a call that a girl had collapsed after taking ecstasy at a Valley nightclub. On arrival I watched the Chaplains go to work. They both councelled her and delivered first aid in a way that amazed me. Calm and efficient would explain it but I think deliberate describes their manner best. This is a word that would come to my mind many times this night.

I'm amazed at the amount of people on the streets at 3am! Don't these people have a home to go to? Well, actually, no not all of them do. Possibly the sweetest part of my night were the few, short interactions with Brisbane's homeless. People who's whole world fits into a plastic shopping bag sit in doorways and on benches, waiting for the hordes of drunken teenagers to leave their living rooms before they set up their beds. But, I found these people were often the quickest with a smile and a laugh and rarely had a complaint about their living conditions. We worry about plasma tv's and private schooling while these people are overjoyed if they find a backpack or suitcase so they dont have to keep looking for new plastic bags.

Around 3:20am we happened across a fight in progress across the road from the Beat nightclub. Two large groups of large men were facing off and as we approached it was obvious from the blood that a few of them had already traded blows. One Chaplain ran straight in between the two groups, shouting orders and telling both groups to leave with an authority that is surprising, both to me and to the two groups by the look of them. Without really thinking I join my comrade in the no-mans-land between the two groups of large men (did I mention they were big?) and find myself staring down men who would have me running scared any other time, telling them to grow up and leave it alone, acting like I could actually stop them if they tried something! I get another word starting to rise to the surface of my thoughts - Authority. Deliberate, and now authority.

There is much else to tell but I have to say that at the end of the night as we were headed home I had a third word come to mind - Grace. An overwhelming feeling of God's grace. Not for me but for all the people I saw tonight, for all the people I met, all the people who cursed us and cursed God. And then I realised how these chaplains, and how I, manage to do what they do every week.

It's all through the grace of God.
God's grace, activated in our lives, means we become aware of who we are in Him, and also become aware of the fact that we are only who we are because of Him.

This knowledge leads us to work for His Kingdom using the gifts, talents, skills and opprotunities He gives us, meaning we work with deliberate intent in our area of influence.

And because we are working where He wants us, how He wants us then we know we go out with the full assurance of our authority in Christ.

And that's what it comes down to for me. Authority. I don't think I've ever felt such authority as I did on the streets, knowing full well I was there doing the Lord's work but at the same time having no idea how I was going to do it, relying on Him every second, every step of the way.

I think I may do this all again very soon.