So today, I woke up and I was feeling really off. I was feeling off yesterday, but this morning, I was just like something ain't right. But I'm glad to report that after somewhere between the praying, the journaling, the worship music, speaking my declarations of truth out loud and meditating on scripture that I felt the joy of the Lord well up and I broke out of the funk that I was in. Hallelujah!
Anyways, today was my first experience doing formal outreach. The church that I go to out here is Cornerstone City Church and in the summer they had an event where they took family photos and they framed them and we are able to go out into the community and give people their photos and invite people to church and see if they wanted us to pray for them.
So we venture out into the community in the 20 degree weather (great start to "Spring Break") and go to the first house. They don't seem to be home, so we leave the stuff in between their screen door and actual door and then pray over the family when we get in the car. Then, we go to the next house and it's the same situation and I'm starting to think–maybe we're not even going to be able to see people, which would stink. Anywho, we get to the third house and yay! they answer and we explain to them who we are and invite them to church and give them the photo and they didn't want prayer for anything, but we prayed for them when we got in the car anyways.
I won't go house by house with the results, but at many of these houses and apartments, there was just a strong stench of beer and pot and cigarettes and it was a sad environment. Of course, I have two sides so the natural side of me was like-eww, does my jacket smell like pot now? and then the spiritual side of me was like–man, you really need to get planted in a community like this and serve people.
Jesus didn't say live your life comfortable and then go ye on a mission trip, no, my life should be marked by the "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them…" found in Matthew 28:19-20. We are called to go. Whether it's in our neighborhood, our school, our bank, our local gym, etc. Show up. Be faithful. Pray hard. And believe big.
I can't tell you any amazing stories from today. No one's life was changed per se by us dropping by and giving them their photo. In fact, no one wanted us to pray for them. But we planted the seed and God can work in that. Plus, it was great for all of us as volunteers to get into the community and start to get to know each other as well as have God move on our hearts to be burdened for the people in the community. We're always looking for huge, big stuff. Wonderful, amazing stories to go and inspire others to go change the world, but there's so much treasure in the day to day obedience. God loves faithful people.
So believe me, today was great and all, but it was not a bucket list item. It was the beginning of "go ye" adventures. I hope you can say the same 🙂
Btw, Rend Collective Experiment is an awesome band. Bye!
