a l i v e & a w a k e

It is daunting to have the task to write out all the significant ways Christ has been working in our community in the last little while. I have been postponing this moment and now I have many. It is like a mosaic of many little snap shots that make up a more complete picture.
But I will not try to have the details as much but the content and heart of each story.
Homeless Church (1 experience counts for six month of meetings)
I have been growing in my understanding of what spiritual development means for me and what is looks like to cultivate that for others. You hear of studies that say you learn only 10% of what you are taught through just listening and 60% of what you hear and take action on right away. So we have been playing with that in our community by resurrecting the Home’less’ church. It is a group of people who are seeking to follow Christ and meeting every week to find out the needs of a community and meet them through building, painting, cleaning, etc. One week of the month they meet to debrief their experiences and talk about the teaching we have been getting on the Sunday expressions.
The ‘debrief’ is geared for people to share what they found Christ was doing in the community as well as what they felt was a growth area. The teaching can easily align itself with those experiences as we process and share our journeys.
It started in Sept 08 and so far (Oct 08) we have shingles roofs, laid flooring, painted, put up drywall, did plumbing and gave clothes and toys to people who have experience immediate and drastic life changes, poverty, single parenting. Those who have been reaching out to other ‘poors’ of their city have also found they grow together with other Christ followers.
One recent example:
The correspondence
The Call out
It's a story of a new mom, who's husband was diagnosed with cancer just after she found out she was pregnant. He just recently passed away before the baby was born. He didn't have any life insurance, and so now the new mom is trying to deal with the death of her husband, a new baby, becoming a single mom and trying to sell her house as quickly as possible. Her immediate needs are: painting, hanging pictures and planting things to be visually pleasing, but we also thought another practical thing would be to make her a few meals that she could freeze in portions. It could even be something as simple as making some nutritious muffins. I'm checking to see if she has any preferences or allergies, but first thought I would check to see how many people I could get to help out.”

“Got there at 10AM and stayed until 2:30. There were lots more things that we could have done, but we sent muffins, a casserole and squares. Our mutual friend couple showed up later, which was good. The best friend of the husband who died was there, and he was really good at arranging the garden area. We also painted the small bedroom and touched up other paint areas, took off her screen door and painted around where it was to match the actual door, and we helped dig out the garden area, and replaced the kitchen cupboard handles, replaced an old faucet and working on the mortar and replacing the hose thing (run a new water line or something
The recently widowed woman was totally appreciative of everything. When I left her exact words were "....and I want to know more about your church and how I can get involved in helping other people too."