Another amazing morning at Story Church. I seriously can't believe I get to do this. We did a pretty bold thing this week. In only our 2nd week as a church, we decided to call an audible this week and divert from our series "GROW" and tackle head on the suffering we are seeing in Haiti. I spent all week preparing for GROW part 2, but by Friday night I became convinced that we couldn't ignore what was happening in the world. I couldn't say "Hey, let's pray about Haiti, let's take a special offering, ok now back to doing our thing." So instead we talked about suffering and how we understand that in a world where God is supposed to be in control.
We acknowledged the question many of us were asking - "Where is God?" In the end, Scripture is so clear that God is with the suffering. He's on the side of the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized, and the have-nots. As a church planter, I think I will look back to this week as a pivotal one for us. It was a week where we took a bit of a risk in order to make a pretty serious statement about our values and our vision as a church. Not many church plants I know have started by changing their plans in week two and addressing an issue like suffering. And no church I know has given away 100% of their offering like we did this week. I'm so proud of our church, the way they stepped up, caught a vision for proclaiming God's heart for the world, and responded with radical generosity. This day will stay with us for a long time.
2 comments:
This is excellent, Jeremy. It is great to see a new church start off with a passion for the poor, oppressed and marginalized. Keep pursuing God's heart for the least of these.
Those of us who are not poor according to the standards of this world have so much to learn by standing in solidarity with those who are.
Bill
Man it sounds like an amazing day in the story God is writing on your hearts as a church. Praying for continued guidance and direction from our Father.
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