I am forming a Think Tank of committee members to help me with a new project. Those members are (YOU) readers of this blog. Do you accept?
Good.
I want to put something into print to hand to our food pantry clients which would awaken them to their value. In the process, to draw them into Jesus would be the ultimate goal.
Our food pantry is a wonderful and meaningful kingdom mechanism at the moment. These friends not only receive much-needed bags of groceries. They also find friends from this flock who sit with them, listen to them, and pray with them. One lady recently sobbed under suffocating duress, I'm not a crier, but this is the one place in my life I can come and cry and know it is alright.
It seems to me that while we are thinking of ways to reach out into the community, this is one place where the community is coming to us. I'm sure similar circumstances dress the stage where you live and serve.
So I want to write a page, a booklet, or a book--something ultra simple and yet professional--which would give these valuable friends a boost to the next level of encountering God. Over dinner last night, while explaining this concept to Mary and our friends David and Lisa, Lisa discussed great stresses of the past and said that you reach a point when you want to say, Just tell me that you love me!
Ah Lisa, I want to call this writing we are discussing Just Tell Me That You Love Me!
Would you think with me? Your comments matter. Some might open a door that you didn't have in mind, but would cause me to realize even another concept. All thoughts are valued.
My feeling is the same for these as for celebs; each possesses pockets of insecurity where they feels themselves to be failures, lonely, useless, and very unimportant. I want to put together a message which would reverse this thinking due to the magnetic love of Jesus.
Ideas? What thinketh ye?
2 comments:
Terry, I have been the one standing in those lines for many years, then later able to help others through a small food pantry that we did deliveries. Several things I remember are how grateful I was for the food, we would not have made it otherwise, but also feeling 'less' of a person for needing it. I remember others having similar thoughts: they were grateful for the help, but wished they didn't need it. Perhaps one point could be how it is normal to have needs, some are more evident than others, but everyone had needs, whether they are financial, physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual and God is the one who ultimately provides for all these needs. His ways are not are ways, so for some, they receive food because of the income God has provided, for others they receive for because of the blessings God has provided through the food pantry. Either way, God is the provider. (Just our society, media, etc tends to value one over the other, thus opening the door for those in financial need to feel they are 'less than' or lower class citizens--not true in God's society).
Terry,
I think Lynn D's comments are right on target.
We've had a Food Bank here at Calhoun for several years, serving around 70 families monthly.
I have often noticed what Lynn mentioned. People are grateful, but seem embarrassed. They often seem reserved and timid about needing help.
Maybe what you're planning to write could include comments ("testimonies") like Lynn's about how food recipients have felt embarrassed at times, and yet found love and help through your food bank.
I'd like to see what you come up with, so we can steal it!
See you at Tulsa Workshop.
Keith
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