Sunday Night Reflections 08
I am sitting down thinking back over not only another great day at Elmwood but for me personally a great week as I got to hang out with some amazing people in Southbend Indiana.
Let me first wrap up some of my thoughts about my trip to Granger Community Church
It was such a help, a time of encouragement, convicting, I learned a ton, I got to meet some other teammates in other parts of the country from Seattle, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Virgina, St Louis MO, North Carolina, Pennsylvania. We were able to gain incredible insight and wisdom because Mark Beeson the founding pastor is secure enough as a leader to share his strengths and weaknesses in front of his staff because he has a heart for other pastors and churches and wants us to reach our full capacity! I can't wait to take some of our leaders in different environments to some future workshops that Ganger host for churches. I thank God for a man and a group of people who faithfully paved the way and who have stayed faithful to the Mission of God. Thanks Pastor Mark – Staff and the folks of Granger you guys ROCK!
Today we finished up our series – How to be Rich and what a great day. The passage of scripture that we looked at in 1 Timothy over these past few weeks had really changed my heart and mind about how to live. Today as we learned the last part of what Paul was telling Timothy I really feel if we can drill down deep regarding this principle of "Viewing our riches through the grid of eternity" that there is more to this life than this life – it will change our lives and our church and our community.
Had a great time celebrating and saying THNAK YOU to our Make Over Team after our morning Gathering over at our favorite place – BWW. This group of people is some of the real hero's of Elmwood. I am proud to be a daddy of one of those special people – Caleb my 8 soon to be 9 yr old son goes with me every week at 7:00 am and helps set up Elmwood. There are dozens of people, young, old, single, families, tall, short, skinny not so skinny, black, white, brown, sleepy… who come together on a rotation basis to help us accomplish our Mission and Strategy at Elmwood. The thing is which is always the case – they thought they were coming to accomplish a task but now they have connected and formed great relationships with people they did not know and now have a great time serving together!
This is what I know as a former coach – no matter what the talent is of one individual – the TEAM together will ALWAYS accomplish more and bring greater VALUE than any one person can!
Earl told me today that many of you are joining the KW team which is AWESOME! That is how to be RICH toward God – serving those who cannot give back – there are 5,000 kids from birth through 17 years of age within a 1 mile radious of the warehouse – 19,000 within just 3 miles of us! we will need an ARMY of loving, caring, KINGDOM minded people to reach these kids – it is and will be the priority of Elmwood – to let kids know that they DO MATTER – and that God does love them and to teach them how to make wise choices – how to make the next right decision – can you just pray with me that God would provide all of the resources needed to reach the children of our community?!
To wrap up our series here is the 4 take-aways that Paul told Timothy to tell the rich christians in his community of faith -
- Admit you are rich!
- Don't lean in on your riches BUT lean in on the One who richly provides!
- Since we have more lets do more and give more to the benefit of others!
