Hands of Christ

So, it’s my vacation time. I won’t be in the office for nearly 2 weeks. What will I do with all of this time? Travel? Nope, it’s not in the budget. Rest? You bet. It has been a crazy fall season of ministry. Bake? Yes, the remaining days leading to Christmas. And, of course, blog…

My CONNECT group participated in the adoption of families from Lititz/Warwick Community Chest. During the Christmas season, LWCC makes its lists of needy households available to those who want to reach out to the community. Shamefully, Grace Church has not participated substantially in this program in the past. It’s not that we didn’t care. It’s not that we didn’t know. It’s that it didn’t fit.

But CONNECT is the future of Grace Church and CONNECT is missional and incarnational. That means that, as time goes on, we will become more focused on being involved in a redemptive way in the world, starting with our own neighborhoods. We are going to enter into our neighbors’ sufferings. We will carry their burdens. We will communicate with words and deeds that they are loved.

This is not a “social gospel.” We don’t even believe that we can fix all of the problems of the world. In fact, we believe that things on a macro level will actually get worse. But we are called to be light in the darkness. And, we are demonstrating that ours is not a Platonic faith. Plato taught that the spiritual domain was better than the physical. A lot of Christians have substituted a Platonic worldview for a biblical view of things. We believe in a physical resurrection! Your body, your neighbor’s body, even the physical world are important. No, this isn’t a social gospel, but rather a full gospel.

Early next year, I am going to invite our group leaders to a meeting where we will discuss how God wants to use CONNECT and Grace Church in 2010 (and beyond). Since Pastor Scott has declared that 2010 will be a Year of Prayer for our church, the timing seems perfect. What is prayer if not connecting to the heart and mind of our Lord? And how else do you determine the direction for the next season of life? Because, on that Day, we all want to be found faithful to our Lord and true to our calling.

So, this is how we’ll roll…