Last Sunday was just a huge day for the church.  Everything went perfect – 20 projects, all greatly appreciated by the community.  The energy in the morning was electric, but only surpassed as the groups came back Sunday night.  the singing was powerful, and the stories were memorable.  We’re hearing some neat responses, too.  The city of Lacey wants to give us a commendation in May.

I’m just more touched by the little things.  One woman said it gives her a reason to bake cookies – to give them away. (We made and gave cookies to the Fire stations, Hospital Emergency Room staff, and some nursing homes).

That was a great start!

We’re all in for participating on October 11.  WE’ll be signing up.

Blessings to you and to World Vision.

Brian Wiele
River Ridge Covenant Church

Another Pastors Thoughts on FIA:

Many churches are beginning to do some form of “faith in action”—being the church. They are to be commended. Two complaints I have heard from fundamentalists concern (a) engaging in service projects as a form of “being the church” and (b) doing “faith in action” on Sunday “instead” of worship.

To the first concern, if any “service project” is not a platform for evangelism or “pure religion” as the Apostle James defines it, then it should not be done at all.

Second, First Baptist Church in Vernon simultaneously took lay-preachers and worship teams to six state institutions and nursing care centers, did door-to-door evangelism to 300 people, preached to and fed 150 kids in the park, fixed major problems at the houses of 10 elderly people, cleared the brush from 20 elderly people’s houses, prayed for 12 hours straight, and delivered meals to 150 poor folks. None of the people we served were in church on Sunday morning—hence reaching them in their homes on a Sunday—and all of them received a copy of God’s inerrent, inspired, authoritative word. That’s why we do it on Sunday.

We go to church to worship, learn and grow. We leave the church to demonstrate our worship to a world in desperate need of Christlike examples.

I invite every reader to become relevant to their community. If you are not relevant, then you are irrelevant.

Let’s let God judge the efforts of churches to fulfill the Great Commission.

Ben Macklin

Vernon

An email from a church staff member who church did a Faith in Action event/ministry:

Hello!
I am on staff at Central Christian Church in Lancaster, Ca. We adopted a neighborhood with another church 3 yrs ago and began having barbecues. Then, a kid’s bible club was started. This mushroomed into different outreaches such as a carnival, Easter egg hunt, Christmas parties, and more. We were beginning to make an impact when we heard about a church that had painted houses over a 10 yr period and had rehabilitated their city. We brought the same concept to this neighborhood that we adopted and painted 44 houses the first year and 2 schools. What an impact! When 1000 people invade a neighborhood, it is electifying! The second year we painted 50 houses and included 2 other neighborhoods. In addition, we also painted an entire playground with colorful games. This year, we painted 31 houses in the same neighborhood plus 2 other neighborhoods. We pray in these neighborhoods once a month, take muffins to the teachers in the schools where these kids go to school and most importantly, have gotten the attention of the City of Lancaster who now partners with us to bring out trash dumpsters and they have renovated a home in each of the neighborhoods we have adopted. These houses are being rented from the City of Lancaster and we have a full-blown ministry in one and are beginning a ministry in the second house. The ministry includes kid’s bible club, Jr High and High School bible study, after school club, Spanish bible study for adults and more. The intent is to keep a presence in the neighborhood and not just paint houses. The painting of the houses is done the first Saturday of October every year. Church services are not held on that Saturday. The name of our ministry is called Neighborhood Impact and we are trying to get other churches involved who will follow the same template and hopefully, we can transform our city for Christ.

http://www.centralchristian.org/