A zip code. A community on the south side of Dallas. For our Youth For Christ mission… a calling.
In the words of an employee in the local juvenile detention facility… 75216 is a “cradle to prison pipeline” for young people in the neighborhood. Predictable. Gut-wrenchingly predictable.
92.5% of the students in 75216 are eligible for free or reduced lunch. A pipeline. An onramp to incarceration, despair, and brokenness.
“But God…”
Merciful. Compassionate. God.
Because Jesus entered His zip code. A cradle to cross pipeline. Predictable. Hope-inducingly predictable.
Jesus interrupted the pipeline of despair. He provided an offramp to hopelessness. But only by willfully embracing His own death sentence. Only by breaking the relentless grip of the evil one at the expense of His own life. Only by living out the call for His faultless life.
The answer to the cradle in 75216 is the cradle in Bethlehem. The only answer to the prison in 75216 is the cross in Jerusalem.
Immanuel. God with us. God in the neighborhood. God on the cross. God victorious.
A pipeline with purpose. No longer a pipedream. Jesus interrupts the cycle.
Hope for 75216. Hope for every son and daughter of Adam.
A pipeline in 75216. Diverted. Redirected. Transformed.
An answer without bars. A solution without parole. Liberation.
A calling. A conviction. A stewardship.
75216.
The Cradle. The Cross. The Answer. For every cradle. For every pipeline.
The Word became flesh and blood,
and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes,
the one-of-a-kind glory,
like Father, like Son,
Generous inside and out,
true from start to finish. (John 1:14 MSG)
Into the neighborhood. Into 75216. Into the souls of the lost and broken.
“Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
(Luke 2:14 ESV)
Peace. In 75216.
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