What Will You Do When You Are Through?

What will you do when you are through? Today is Friday, July 29th. We have completed the last work day of our Youth In Mission trip to New Orleans. Tomorrow we head home, back to the lives we led before we arrive here - 23 people, some of whom had never met before, all of whom we will never forget.

What happens when one goes home? After such an event as this, can one ever truly go back to what was in their life before? We hope we will go on ministering. We know it won't be in the exact same way as we have been able to minister here. We will be confronted with the demands of school, family, and work. There will demands and requests for our time and energy. We will have to choose. We will have to set priorities. You see, ministry is one of those things that usually gets our left over energy. We spend it on our job, our families, our hobbies - then, AND ONLY THEN, we seek time to minister. Usually, by that time, we are as drained as we are from a workday in the New Orleans heat and humidity.

There is a picture at the top of this post. On my right is Mr. Charles Wilmore. On my left is Mr. Feltus Lee. Mr. Wilmore is 76. Mr. Lee is almost 88. They spent their summer assisting in a day camp with several dozen screaming, caffinated, highly energetic children. They could have, maybe they even wanted to, let the day softly stretch by as they rocked on their front porch at home. They could have watched television, gone down to the Senior Center, visited friends in the neighborhood, or played checkers under the shade of a huge live oak tree in the park as I remember so many of the older men doing in front of the courthouse in Winder, Georgia where I grew up.

Charles and Feltus, I did ask permission to be on a first name basis with them, chose to jump right in the middle of all those kids. They chose that because they realized they are not through, that God has something great and grand yet in their lives, that in the middle of the hurt and pain of New Orleans he has called them to spread hope.

Are you through with life? Please, I hope not. God has great and wonderful work he is doing all over the world, some of it in New Orleans, some of it in far off and exotic sounding places, but much of it in your neighbors' houses, among the hungry and the homeless in your own community, in the heart of the person you see at work who has yet to experience what Christ can do in their life if they will only let Him. However, to be that person, to do that ministry means getting up out of your chair, turning off the television, and making ministry a priority. It means also deciding on your ministry group, place and purpose, but, please, don't be through!

Pastor Craig

Lessons From the Oaks

I learned something this past week. Well, I guess I learn something every week. It’s just that sometimes the things I learn have a greater impact.

William Bryant Logan writes in Oak “In some forests, oak trees of compatible species graft their roots together and ‘become one flesh.’ Through their shared root system, the stronger, dominant trees may provide the weaker trees with nutrients. In this way, even the roots of stumps can continue to live and contribute to the forest.”

That’s kind of like the body of Christ, isn’t it? There are days, times, periods in your life where you are the mighty oak, supplying nutrients and life to those who seem to be running short on both. There are other days, times, or periods of your life where you feel sapped (Sorry, but I had to do that.) of all energy and hope for life and future. It is at those key moments that another part of the body of Christ comes along to pick you up and increase your hope, indeed your very life! My guess is that you are thinking about someone specifically who has been that tremendous blessing to you.

Even more appropriate is Christ’s own claim in John 15:5; I am the vine, you are the branches. We’ve known that all along. We can certainly tell the difference when we cut ourselves off from other believers, when we ignore fellowship and do not tend to our spiritual relationships, when we neglect times of prayer and Scripture reading. It doesn’t take long, after we pull our roots away from the source of our spiritual nurture, before we become spiritually unhealthy.

Jesus Christ is that never-ending spring of eternal life and love and hope that continues to well up within us even when times say it should be otherwise. It is through the Spirit of Christ that we continue to live, move, and have our being (Acts 17:28). Even when we don’t connect well with one another, we can be connected to Jesus Christ who nourishes us all and provides us with life now and life eternal!

Pastor Craig