OK, I know the title is a little "Middle School" like, but hey it got you here didn't it?
Imagine someone came into your life and just "dumped" a tone of resources onto your lap. Just say someone walked up and gave you a check for $50 and said I just wanted to bless you. Would that $50 change your life? Probably not. It may however, make your day or maybe even your week, but I will guarantee you this, YOU WILL NEVER FORGET THE PERSON THAT GAVE IT TO YOU.
At Awaken, we want Jesus to look attractive to people. We want our community to see the love of Jesus. I was talking to a few people tonight at work about targeting a Trailer Park in the area where we are looking to plant our church. I said what if we hung out there for a few weeks and started to get to know some of the people. After a few weeks, we put on a little carnival for the children in their community. Get inflatables, icee's, funnel cakes, hand out t-shirts and love on them. Finally we give every family a gift card to Wal Mart.
We also will build relationships with the people in the community and start a small group Bible Study. We start to target and pray for each home in that community that is far from God and pray that God would change their lives.
After talking about this I asked some of the people that I was casting this vision to, "Why wouldn't it work?" This really started getting me excited about my purpose in life and the purpose for Awaken. Would all of these people come to our church? I am sure some would, but that is not point at all. The point is just to love them. Most of them probably believe that Jesus exists, but have just not seen His love through His followers. So we are going to do it.
What are some creative ideas that you have wanted to do, but just have not had a chance to do it before?
3 comments:
Hey Justin! I think this is awesome that God has laid this on your heart. I've lived in this area my whole life and I haven't seen anything like this idea in a long time. I knew about Jesus my entire life, even went to church a few times, but never saw His love in people that called themselves Christians until Student Venture came up in my life. The difference? They built a genuine relationship with me and showed me the real Jesus.
Right now I'm just thinking of how God can use this idea and totally blow our minds with it. And I like that the motivation behind it is just to show them Jesus and not have them be another number that comes to our church. That's what it's all about: sharing God's love and building relationships and accountability from His love.
God calls us to love people and put them above ourselves, and that's exactly what we'll be doing. I'm excited bro!
Phil. 2:1-4 ...amazing
Josh
Our city is full of churches. I have never heard of the church going to where the people are. Mostly its "come to use and get blessed" or even "come to us and bless us." We need to go to the people where THEY are and LOVE THEM. When the church is so concerned about how many people they have or how big of an "international" ministry they have, the people next door to them and their needs get forgotten. We have to start walking and thinking as Christ does. Jesus didn't stop and make sure that His numbers were growing, he just trusted God and loved people. Everything else just fell into place.
Great insights guys.
Josh, you are right on. You said it is about loving people. So true, If they see His love they may embrace Him and start a relationship with Him.
Tony, it really is a simple process. We do not have to think of putting on "our" extravagant programs. They just want us to come where they are, say hi and show concern for them and love them where they are and for who they are. Programs and events are not all bad, but rarely get into the lives of people. Show me some of Jesus' programs.
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