Almost 400 packs of freezer pops awaiting their new homes. Please come help us unite a family with these freezer friendly friends! Hundreds of children suffer from “ordinary pink tongue syndrome” Won’t you help? You can contribute to a blue, green, orange or purple tongue in a child today.
6:30 at SVC.
Hay in the barn
Proverbs 14:4 “Where there are no Oxen, the manger is empty, but from the strength of an ox comes an abundant harvest”
One thing outreach has taught me is that whatever we do is messy. As we go forward into what Jesus has led us to we inevitably get some hay on the barn floor.
The hay may look like many different things. Challenges to how we personnaly spend our time and our money. Challenges to how we think the church should spend its time and money. In fact, if we aren’t asking those questions then we aren’t doing this well at all. Surely we must “count the cost”. But Christ also reminds us that His is not a “supply and demand” economy. His is an eternal source without limit or end-both for us personally and corporately.
Hay can also look like questioning the purpose of outreach. Is it to save souls? Is it to just be generous? Is it for the needy, the rich, the broken, the saved, the healing or the sick? Is it mass marketing with a twist? Is it self glorifying? Or humble service. I encourage you to re-read the parable of the sower and ask some different questions. Imagine yourself as different characters in Jesus’ story. Maybe you can ask …but what about the seed that lives?
Have you ever been on a farm? As much work as goes into the farming, equally as much goes to care for the animals. The best farmers know that part of benefiting from a work animal is that you have to feed and maintain it in order to get that benefit. The Proverb is a beautiful promise to us that God makes us strong to work the harvest. It doesn’t say “…if the ox is strong…”
The hay of the harvest comes from the farmer’s own field. This morning ask “where is our field? To what crop am I to tend?” Beans don’t grow well in a rice field, but oxen are needed to till the land in both fields.
This week we have several things going on. Two door-to-door outreaches, one Monday and one Friday, and the Kid’s Community Party on Saturday. Consider volunteering for any or all of those events. But, just as importantly, pray for the harvest. Pray that yes we fill the manger, and we get at least a little bit of hay on the floor.
little things
So here we go! Are you as excited about the block party as we are? This is gonna be so much fun for our neighbors…and us! Who doesn’t love a carnival? Kids getting their faces painted, sloppy hot dogs and of course the obligatory dunk tank. But those are the big things.
The little things are that we can show our neighbors that we love them. Want to be around them. Just as they are.
Remember before you started coming to the building? What did you think of the “church”? Be honest. Do the words “better than me” ,”hypocrite” or “judgemental” come to mind? It certainly did for me. What would have/ did change that for you?
I’m gonna guess it was being in contact with a real person. A person who wasn’t all those labels.
This is it…our chance to not be those labels. To be all who we can be. (Sorry, armed forces, we kinda pre-date you on that slogan)
Volunteer to have fun. Volunteer to be with your church family. Volunteer to be with the whole family.
August 21st volunteers will need to be at the building at 9am and stay till about 2pm when we get it all cleaned up. The more the merrier!
