“The greatest single
cause of atheism in the world today
Is Christians who acknowledge
Jesus with their lips
Then walk out the door and
deny him by their lifestyle.
world simply finds unbelievable.”
everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then will
they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to
believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear
without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are
sent?
different directions. We are an unbelievably blessed people. We have an endless
number of things to be thankful for! To think the God of the universe wishes to
use us to further His kingdom is beyond my understanding at times. Today I
wanted to share with you about how Discovery Church has blessed
us. From the day we arrived here in Galway they have blessed us beyond belief!
passion that we have seen since day one has been both encouraging and
contagious! The people we have worked with at Discovery Church do not
acknowledge Him with their lips and walk out the door and deny them by their
lifestyles. They are living out their Christian faith with love and compassion
for the people of Galway. They want to be in the community and point the people
of the community towards Christ. Many people here hold a negative opinion of
“church” due to the past, but Discovery is working hard to show that
they simply love the people as a result of Christ loving us.
Therefore, we spent
the month out in the community sharing and serving. We did everything from
picking up trash around town to street evangelism. We painted, cleaned
graffiti, prayer walked the city, did free face paining and hugs, passed out
copies of The Shack, and labeled
almost 10,000 worship CDs that will be given out in the city. This month has
been a blast, and I have just felt completely blessed to have had the
opportunity to be here!
place, our purpose is to serve our ministry contact for the month in whatever
way we can. We desire to be a blessing to them, but this month I feel like that
role was reversed. We were so completely humbled by the love poured out on us
by everyone at Discovery! From the beginning they took a real interest in us.
The first Sunday we were there, Jimmy
mentioned to the congregation that if peopled wanted to have us over for a meal
it would be greatly appreciated. That simple announcement resulted in an
amazing outpour from the church! Jimmy said he had to actually say no to some
people because so many responded. I pray that our church at home treats
visiting people the same way that Discovery has treated us this month.
I’m told I need to learn from all this is how to receive gifts. When someone
gives me something, I feel like I owe them something in return. Sometimes I
don’t even want to accept a gift at all because I can’t return the favor. I’m
told that living in community means learning to accept gifts. I enjoy giving
gifts because I am usually blessed by the giving. So if I refuse to accept the
gift of someone else, I rob them of the blessing. Kind of a different way to
look at things for me.
I would ask that you
pray for Discovery Church. Pray that God will bless their work. Pray that He
would bless their deep desire to see the people of Galway meet the true, living
God. Pray that the people of Galway and Ireland will begin to see that there is
something more to live for than me. They
need to have their eyes opened to the fact that despite their post-Christian attitude, God is not done with them.
