This June we will be attending a conference put on by the Alliance of Renewal Churches (ARC), and I will be speaking in a workshop and playing on the worship team for the event. The theme of this year’s conference is “Not Forgotten”. This theme is something that the Lord has highlighted in my heart for some time now, and is something I am passionate about. God has a lot to say about the poor, and has a special place in His heart for the poor, oppressed, and outcast. Working in Native America, Marissa and I are giving of our lives, time and energy to understand generational poverty, and to understand poverty, means to identify with those who are in it. Understanding poverty is different from merely studying poverty. Much of the way poverty is looked at (sometimes even by those in the Western Church) within the United States is financial and material. Taking care of the poor does not necessarily mean just giving them money. For us, understanding and ministering to poverty means identifying with the person on a heart level to recognize their lack of overall resources and their way of thinking. Our passion is for Native America, a group of people who live in pockets of poverty all over our nation, to be mentored into “life abundantly”, which is not just spiritual, but emotional, financial, educational and within family systems, etc. Native American reservations, while different from one to the other, exist in generational poverty.
There are two people whose words resonate in my mind. First, Rich Mullins (a Christian musician who had a passion for reaching Native America for Christ, and died in a car accident in 1997) said: “Christianity is about learning to love like Jesus loved and Jesus loved the poor and Jesus loved the broken.” My heart is passionate for the Body of Christ to move past looking at the poor as charity and to looking at the poor as an invitation to understand, identify with, and to experience the love of Jesus Christ, who did not isolate Himself in glory but poured Himself out in love for mankind. (Philippians 2:3-11) There is a God-ordained organization on the planet to take care of the poor. I’m not talking about the Salvation Army, the local food kitchen, or other charities. While what these organizations do is important, I’m talking about an organization that is metaphorically, and I believe even literally, the hands and feet of Christ. 🙂 That’s right, if you haven’t guessed, I’m talking about the Body of Christ. The Church. You and me. With all of our own weaknesses, frailties and poverty, we have a chance to leave our everyday comfort zones and reach out with the love of Christ. The poor are always with us; however, we often fail to see them.
Second, William Wilberforce (a British politician, a philanthropist, Christian and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade) once said, “If to be feelingly alive to the sufferings of my fellow-creatures is to be a fanatic, I am one of the most incurable fanatics ever permitted to be at large.” My prayer is that Jesus will work in the heart of His Bride in such a way that the world would see a people marked with love and compassion and that they would rise up in the secular arena as those marked with mercy. Lord, raise up the Wilberforce’s! Lord, raise up the fanatics alive to the sufferings of others!
Thank you, to everyone on our partnership team. Your partnership shows us that this message of reaching the “Forgotten Ones” resonates in your heart too!