We had a great service Sunday at Riverbluff Church.. It was crafted by our Worship Team and built on "Look What God Is Doing". About 25 people shared what God has done and is doing in their lives. Growing them. Correcting them. Healing them. Changing them. Forgiving them. Helping them to live forgiven. Applause broke out when Jessie Dasinger gave his video testimony of God's healing from leukemia. Several gave "Yay God's" about Celebrate Recovery for helping them find freedom from addictions and addictive behaviors. And it was amazing when little Madison who wasn't supposed to live, celebrated her 4th birthday with us. Shouts everywhere! It was an amazing day.
Next week we begin a church wide study that was prompted by God at work in me some time ago when I read David Platt's Radical . God just did a number on me to show that we were helping the needy in convenient and easy ways that didn't require a lot of church or personal sacrifice. Isaiah 58 has troubled me for many years and I felt the time was right for us to do something about it.
In reading the book The Hole In Our Gospel, I saw a resource to help our entire church confront the issue of the Christian's role in world poverty and needs. I discovered that small group materials were available for an entire church to explore this together. So I asked our leadership team to pray about it and Sunday we start. It's a 6 week Sunday message and small group study based on the book by Rich Stearns, President of World Vision.
The United States is home to thousands of churches and Christians who engage the poor every now and then. We want to disciple Riverbluff Christians to be Christians who engage the needy as regularly as they engage the Lord in Prayer, Bible study, witness, community, or worship. Our vision is that they will assist others in need as a normal Christian activity, not an "add-on". It will be a discipline until it becomes a habit and ultimately a way of life.
Rick Warren did a study of the verses in the Bible that deal with poverty and justice (don't get excited Glenn Beck fans! Justice is a Biblical word.) Warren found over 2,000 verses that were directly related to our regular engagement with the needy. The American Bible Society published his research as The Poverty & Justice Bible, and it is powerful and convicting reading.
When I first came to Midland Park Baptist back in 1988, I had a big place in my heart for the poor that I think God put there. Our efforts to connect evangelism and discipleship with concern for the poor and needy has always been in our DNA. Thank God! Now God has led me and our leadership team to take serious steps to meet needs in the Charleston area, the nation, and around the world in a greater way than we have before.
My prayer is that God will take us deeper into our understanding of the issues of poverty and justice and then cause us to have a greater influence on the needs of the world. We actually are World Changers through Christ.
Just thinking about it...
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