Wednesday Morning Looking Good!
For several years leading up to moving into North Buffalo/Kenmore and launching a new church I would drive into this area- going up and down streets just asking God to place a burden and love for this community in my heart. It had been a long time since I had done any kind of ministry in an urban setting so if God was truely calling me and Gloria and our family into this area I knew I needed a God sized portion of His love and His burden to reach this community. I don't claim to be a great prayer warrior (at times I feel pathetic at it) but I knew that I needed His special call and annointing if we were going to jump into this adventure.
Because of those drive by prayers that I was having over this area back then a habit began to form which I did not necessarily mean to develop of praying for people, families, kids, churches, streets, neighborhoods (as I would drive by them) that God would do an extraordinary thing in those people and places. By no means have I arrived and or even remotely began to grasp the full magnitude of a street, neighborhood, community lost for eternity - but God has begun to press firmly upon my being that if I – you – we – don't take ownership for the lost-ness of the people in our circle of influence, to begin to be shaken out of our comfortableness – that if they don't hear and see the life changing message of Jesus of Christ through us that some how they will be ok – if we don't allow the God of this universe to begin to change the very core of who we are to be more like Him so that we can be on task with His mission, to please Him by reaching every man, woman and child with repeated opportunities to hear and SEE the message of Jesus Christ in places we don't like to go, people we don't like or feel comfortable being around we will get to heaven, get to the PARTY and realize we came empty handed. I think there will be sorrow like we have never experienced because of the missed opportunities to help bring more people to Christ.
The Chapel at Elmwood was started with the mission to reach the unconvinced – those who had not yet been reconnected back to their Heavenly Father. We will do things and say things in a way that has the unconvinced in mind – we want to be a community of faith that is based upon acceptance – that we will love people just as they are and begin to build a relationship of trust that allows us to have influence in their lives and when the TRUTH is presented that relational bridge will be strong enough to bear it. We can't make anybody accept or receive the free gift of GRACE that Jesus offers every person but we can sure be a wall or a barrier. So we will always think with the unconvinced in mind!
I thank God for the incredible group of CONVINCED that He has assembled for this GOD SIZED MISSION – and I get jacked thinking about those hundreds and pray-fully thousands who will join this mission in the weeks and months and years to come. You never know – it might be some young boy, or girl, or prisoner, or drug addict, alcoholic, dad, mom, grandmother on LaSalle, Summer, W Girard… that God has been waiting for to finally say YES and in that moment the mission of reconciliation between God and the human race will be over and in the blink of an eye the Father calls us home.
It could be today!
