Give unto others

We are gearing up for our Annual Missions Convention in October!

It is one of the biggest events on our church calendar. I am so thrilled that we will be able to host it in our own fellowship hall...after everything the Flood of '08 threw at us back in June (we had been looking to hold it elsewhere!). We are anxious to use all of that spacious area for ministry functions. Today they were working on mudding the drywall areas that have to be finished before painting. Progress is moving forward nicely for this goal to be realized! Thank you Jesus.

Last week our missions committee met to work on the missions convention. One of the items we were ironing out was the focus of our Cash Offering Project. Every year we pick a special missions project to give directly to during the convention. This year we were leaning to picking one of the zillion things that we need here at home...because the flood washed away so much! But one of the members then mentioned they felt we should look outside and bless someone else...even in our greatest time of need. The Lord used that moment to direct our team to focus on a flooded out church just 3 blocks away. The Holy Spirit was moving in that meeting...

I met with that Pastor tonight on my way home from the office. We talked in the middle of their church foyer...complete with dust, drywall sheets, brooms and tools. Men come every night...and the women too...to work on their church building. They haven't been able to get back into their sanctuary like we have in ours. Their goal: sometime in October! I know they are anxious to gather their congregation all together back home and complete their wilderness wandering like we did about three weeks ago...yet we still meet in the borrowed church on Tuesdays!

They have been worshiping down at the Methodist Church downtown. Plus they also have another fellowship, a Hispanic church, that they started about 8 years ago that worships in their building too. Double the need to get back home! We are going to help them.

Our committee has adopted this church, Seventh Street Church of God, as our primary group to bless with a sacrificial offering during our convention. Details will be forthcoming to this very special project for a fellow church just three blocks away from us!

As I walked through their facility I was again moved at the destruction the Flood of '08 caused to so many buildings in our community, even to other churches...just like it did to ours. They have so much rebuilding to do to get back to where they were before June 7th. The highest point of the waters was 7 feet in their educational wing. It was 5 feet in their main sanctuary. All you have to do is take a walk in another man's church and you will feel the pain that he feels; yet my brother in Christ wasn't bitter, he had a sweet spirit, plus genuinely trusting faithfully in God, and hope filled! Awesome!

Join me in praying that God will grip our hearts and perform spiritual surgery in all of us during this year's World Missions Convention!

Much love to all!