Friday, January 8, 2010
New Year
The last couple of weeks have been the most abnormal in quite some time. My sister and her husband came for a visit and...I have to say things have changed a bit around here.
Actually, I should probably go back about 6 weeks or so. We started with a visit to the assisted living place. I took all the kids for a visit. I don't know what it is, but the elderly in these places absolutely adore children and it was great to see their faces brighten. Then, when I went to California with Tristan I watched as my sister and brother-in-law made it their mission to be missionaries wherever they went. My heart was stirred. Then, when they came here for a visit, we went to the streets downtown, to the tent city, talked to just about every pastor and homeless shelter in town, made videos to give people ideas how to serve their community such as "Laundry Love" where you go to a laundr-o-mat and pay for every one's laundry, shovel snow for people in your neighborhood just to show Christ's love and maybe open a door to talk about HIM. It seemed as though everyday they got up and asked, what can we do for the Kingdom today?
I still home schooled. I still cleaned the house. I still made dinner. I still did all my other jobs. What hit me hardest was that it wasn't that hard to take a few extra steps from my regular walk.
You know what the amazing thing is? I've been hearing stirrings of people doing or wanting to do this kind of thing all over the place. This week we had IMPACT meetings everyday at our church. New Life Church did the same thing. Every where I'm hearing people talking about changing the way people think about Christians and about church in general. For years the unchurched have thought of us as hypocrites, people with too many rules, we don't do anything for the homeless or for people in need. Our divorce rates as Christians are the same as non-Christians - what makes us different than the people who don't call themselves Christians? What I'm hearing is that Christ followers want to change that. What good are we if we've lost our saltiness?
For anyone who read this, go to www.forgottenchurch.com. Watch the videos, make some calls, get some people together, go do some ministry downtown, or some laundry love or just start a conversation, ask questions you never know what God is going to do.
Actually, I should probably go back about 6 weeks or so. We started with a visit to the assisted living place. I took all the kids for a visit. I don't know what it is, but the elderly in these places absolutely adore children and it was great to see their faces brighten. Then, when I went to California with Tristan I watched as my sister and brother-in-law made it their mission to be missionaries wherever they went. My heart was stirred. Then, when they came here for a visit, we went to the streets downtown, to the tent city, talked to just about every pastor and homeless shelter in town, made videos to give people ideas how to serve their community such as "Laundry Love" where you go to a laundr-o-mat and pay for every one's laundry, shovel snow for people in your neighborhood just to show Christ's love and maybe open a door to talk about HIM. It seemed as though everyday they got up and asked, what can we do for the Kingdom today?
I still home schooled. I still cleaned the house. I still made dinner. I still did all my other jobs. What hit me hardest was that it wasn't that hard to take a few extra steps from my regular walk.
You know what the amazing thing is? I've been hearing stirrings of people doing or wanting to do this kind of thing all over the place. This week we had IMPACT meetings everyday at our church. New Life Church did the same thing. Every where I'm hearing people talking about changing the way people think about Christians and about church in general. For years the unchurched have thought of us as hypocrites, people with too many rules, we don't do anything for the homeless or for people in need. Our divorce rates as Christians are the same as non-Christians - what makes us different than the people who don't call themselves Christians? What I'm hearing is that Christ followers want to change that. What good are we if we've lost our saltiness?
For anyone who read this, go to www.forgottenchurch.com. Watch the videos, make some calls, get some people together, go do some ministry downtown, or some laundry love or just start a conversation, ask questions you never know what God is going to do.
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