We have been very blessed to be able to work with such an awesome contact this month in Brendon. He is the childrens director here at Lifeswitch (the church we are partnering with this month) and he has poured so much into our team. Each day we begin our day with a cup of tea and some insights on what God is teaching us and sometimes some worship. It is a fantastic way to start our ministry each day and I really love it. It is in these times that I’ve gained so much from what Brenden has shared.
M:10 with Brendon and the harbour behind us…if you look close you can see the South Island
Last week Brenden shared a phrase that really stuck with me and I’ve been trying to form my thoughts enough to write a blog on it. He said that ministry is about “walking slowly through the crowd.” I’m not sure when this all clicked together but it was due to that and the other things he has said to us this week about how we aren’t here to get done as many tasks as we possibly can. It isn’t about if we get to every single house on our list. It’s about spending time with and really talking to those who we do get teh chance to interact with. We aren’t going to these homes to just wash their windows or mow their lawns. That isn’t our aim. Our aim is to talk with them and show them God’s love. Our aim is to let them know that we aren’t just doing these things to be nice people, but because God has show His love to us and we want to show our love to them. In the cases we are in we are showing it by doing tasks for them around their homes or putting on a BBQ in the park for them, but it is so much more and deeper than the things we are doing.
My goal has been to walk more slowly through the crowds around me. Yesterday I had a chance to meet a great kid at one of the homes we were at. He reminded me of my brother as a kid. He had a sweet heart and a love for his pets and just a great smile. I Immediately felt the desire to chat with this boy. I finished cleaning the front windows and decided to let someone else finish up the rest and go make conversation with this boy. We didn’t talk about anything huge. I asked him about his pets and shared a bit about mine. I helped him get his cat off the top of the fence, and he told me about the TV shows he liked. I never mentioned Jesus or anything I just met him where he was and prayed that God would use our conversation to start something with him.
Another picture Brendon gave us was that of a garden (as we got to be a part of creating a new garden this past week it was applicable) He told us that it is like a garden. We may not ever get teh chance to see the growth and harvest of the plants in the gardens of the lives of people we are interacting with. However, we are probably planting the seeds or taking off the grass that covers up the space the garden will be in. We are doing the prerequisite work in the lives of these people. We may never get to tell them about Jesus, but we are showing them that Jesus loves them by taking time to serve them and genuinely tak and ask them about their lives. Later someone may come along who has the chance to help the seed grow and hopefully someone some day will be able to see the seeds grow into plants. So I pray that yesterday I was able to plant a seed in that little boys life. To show him that God loves him and we do too. I pray one day someone gets to harvest that seed that was planted and one day I meet this boy in hevean.
