Zimbabwe Orphans
In 2009, Cassy & Steve DiLeo, organized a clothing drive that pulled in churches and businesses including PJ’s Coffee, who allowed boxes to be placed in all of their St. Tammany stores for a month or more. hundreds of boxes of clothes were shipped to Zimbabwe. This morning I was blessed to receive the first pics of orphans at Melfort Children’s Home in Zimbabwe receiving some of those clothes!
Thanks to Steve and Cassy for your AGAPE-like leadership and initiative to take on the task. Along with the clothes, this orphanage has received new life through a new water pump and system for the on site well, thanks to the Make-a-Wish Foundation and the desire of Jonathan DiLeo, Cassy & Steve’s youngest son who passed away last year due to complications with a brain tumor. His last wish was that Melfort have clean water. I was privileged to travel to Zimbabwe and visit Melfort Orphanage with Steve, Cassy, and Jonathan in 2005. It’s just a snapshot of the plight of millions of orphans in Zimbabwe and other parts of Africa (estimated 25% of the population in Zim are orphans). Peter Mabasa, Pastor of Global Life Ministries in Zimbabwe writes about the children at Melfort:
We paid a visit to Melfort Children’s Home this week to distribute the clothing you and others donated to us recently. It was such a beautiful sight seeing many of these children smiling and happy to get a new pair of shoes, dress or perhaps a warm jersey to counter this year’s severe winter. Most of the children at this home have their own story to tell. They come from dysfunctional families some shunned by their families because they dared report a case of sexual and or other abuse resulting in the arrest of a family member e.g. an uncle. Then there are the orphans as a result mostly of the HIV pandemic. Other groups comprise children abandoned at birth by young mothers not prepared to take the responsibility of motherhood. You sit down with any of these children and you hear harrowing tales that will bring the most hardened person to tears. Making a small difference in the life of these children is one of the most fulfilling things one can ever do and for that we are grateful to you brethren for making this possible.
Along with aid to orphans, churches are being planted, medical aid provided, and leaders are being trained in rural Zimbabwe in partnership with Global Life Ministries and churches on the Northshore and in Central Louisiana. This weekend we are praying for Global Life as they trek to remote Binga, Zimbabwe, for a medical outreach. Also, praying for teams from Central Louisiana currently on mission in Zimbabwe. I’m looking forward to getting back to Zim in 2011. Let me know if you’d like to get on board.
What Does Missional Look Like?
The call to mission may cause you to memorize the names of everyone on your street; take new co-workers out for lunch; throw parties to connect friends who don’t know each other; go out of your way to ask people, “How are things going?” You might intentionally give some money to help people or support church, civic, or global causes that meet practical needs. You might feel the call to give time to volunteer. You might even participate in local or global missions.
Worth Reading: Church in the Making
“Why do we continue sending planters out to the field by themselves with no momentum, very little support, and the odds stacked against them?” So ask Ben Arment in his new book Church in Making: What Makes or Breaks A New Church Before it Starts. And this is the big question that many veteran church planters and there families have found themselves asking after seasons of discouragement and disillusionment. This book is written from the perspective of one who has been there and worked through what it takes to build momentum, gather support, and overcome obstacles. We may not like many of the answers. There is need for cultivation, it’s sometimes necessary to pull the plug, the best planters are locals and not big shots that parachute into town, ability to build a social network is a necessity. I hope every church planting strategists will read this book for solid ideas about prepping the ground and knowing what planters on the field are going through. For church planters, the questions for discussion after each section would be great for core development meetings. Well worth reading. Plan on keeping this book close to the desk for a few years.
You’ll also do yourself a favor by following the author’s blog.
Here’s a few of my favorite quotes:
- “Just like farming, there are two activities for church planters: cultivating and planting. If you do the right thing in the wrong season, you get zero results.”
- “If you dive headlong into planting a church on tough soil, you’ll get discouraged quickly and burn out.”
- “behind every great church is a cultivated community.”
- “there’s nothing more destructive to a church planter’s well-being than starting a church with no momentum.”
- “Buzz covers a multitude of sins.”
- “Church planting is the fine art of emptying ourselves for people who reject us and forgiving them for the sake of the gospel.”
- “As church planters we have to be careful to plant the church our community needs, not the church in our heads.”
- “The minute your congregation decides to exist for itself, the church is dead.”
- “It’s easy to sacrifice vision when the money is running low and you could generate revenue by becoming more things to more people.”
- “By putting personality ahead of purpose, we make our churches difficult to reproduce, let alone sustain.”
What is Community?
The call to community is more than just going to church on Sunday. A commitment to community might change the way you think about your Christian friends. Instead of working to impress them with your spirituality or your “edginess”, you might find yourself entrusting them with your struggles. Which might lead to better relationships. Which might lead to you going on mission together. Which is the whole point.
Good stuff from the TK Primer, which our church is tracking through this Summer.
Block Party Maximizer
Simple idea to maximize the impact of your evangelistic Block Party: Invite the local Ice Cream Truck to crash the party. And why not pay for the Ice Cream?
Just Like You
I think of this every year around Father’s Day.
There are little eyes upon you, and they are watching night and day;
There are little ears that quickly take in every word you say;
There are little hands all eager to do everything you do,
And a little boy who’s dreaming of the day he’ll be like you.
You’re the little fellow’s idol, you’re the wisest of the wise,
In his little mind about you, no suspicions ever rise;
He believes in you devoutly, holds that all you say and do,
He will say and do in your way when he’s grown up to be like you.
There’s a wide-eyed little fellow who believes you’re always right,
And his ears are always open and he watches day and night;
You are setting an example every day in all you do,
For the little boy who’s waiting to grow up to be like you.
Source unknown
Motives
…if someone is pre-committed to falsity and will not pursue God with pure heart and motives, they will hear only what they want to hear. The horrifying result of impure motives is that people sincerely believe it is God who has spoken, when all along it is was their own lying hearts.
Alan Hirsch in Untamed: Missional Discipleship
Worse than not doing Christianity, is doing Christianity with selfish and impure motives.
How Can My Church Get Involved in Church Planting and Multiplication?
Reaching North America for Christ is too big a task for one church to handle. New Church Multiplication is one of the best ways for us to work the North American fields to the edges. And every church can get involved in multiplication of new Churches. How? The sky is the limit. There is no right or wrong way to support church planting. The question is, what are you willing to do? How big of a commitment are you willing to make?
Here are three levels of relationship that excludes no church from involvement. I offer a few suggestions that are not meant to be an exhaustive list under each level.
It’s All About Relationships
Continuing our Close Encounters series at Bridge Church. Talked this week about the importance of relationships in Jesus’ ministry and the need for relational approaches to reaching our friends for Christ. In the book Lost and Found: The Younger Unchurched and Churches that Reach Them by Ed Stetzer, Richie Stanley, and Jason Hayes, they demostrate this need with statistical data. A few statistics:
- 17% in todays world would go to church if seeking spiritual guidance. The church is no longer the place to go to find answers about spirituality.
- 90% believe they can have a good relationship with God without being involved in a church.
- 91% have at least one Christian among their close friends.
- 90% said they would be willing to listen to someone share his or her beliefs.
- 60% said they would be willing to study the Bible if a friend ask them.
- 48% would be willing attend a small group of people to learn more about the Bible and Jesus.
So people do not consider church for answers, but they have connections with Christians in our churches and would even be willing to open their lives to listen to friends. So releasing and empowering Christians to reach their network of friends off of our campuses should be a major part of our strategy. Neil Cole in his book Church 3.0 comments about this research with this question: “Why is it that when we consider ways to reach out to the lost we always plan events rather than using the natural relationships God has already given us?” Could this be a solution to our churches budget crunch? Less expensive productions, more releasing people to form organic relationships that will bring others to a close encounter with Christ.
Lane Corley 