Gas, Groceries and God’s Love

"Looks like you guys picked the wrong day to be out here," was the first remark we heard this morning a little after 9:00 AM as we gathered for our January Love Granbury service project. The temperature was a crisp 25 degrees and the wind chill was down around 15 degrees as we arrived at the Brookshires Gas Station on Morgan Street to pump gas and the Brookshires Supermarket to bag groceries and do carry out and cart return.

 

And even though it was pretty chilly, the look on people's faces when confronted with the unconditional love of God was more than enough to keep us warm. The people's reactions were varied…ranging from "I can't believe you guys are out here today," to "Why would you do this on such a cold day?" One of the students in our group had a great response when asked why we would be doing this on such a cold day. He simply replied, "hey, anybody can pump somebody's gas when it's sunny and seventy-five, but it really means something when it's cloudy and twenty five."

 

It never ceases to amaze me how God's love can be shown and shared through something like pumping someone's gas or bagging their groceries and carrying them to their car.

KE09 First Organizational Meeting

We are going to be having our first organizational meeting for KE09 on Tuesday, January 27, 2009 at 11:30 AM. We will be meeting at the Hood County Justice Center, located at 1200 W. Pearl Street (right next to the Granbury City Park) in the Hood County Court at Law jury meeting room. Just come in to the Justice Center and we will have signs and directions for where you need to go to find us. Also, we will have a light lunch provided for you at the meeting at no cost to you.

We are so excited about this year's Kindness Explosion. Every one of the congregations who participated last year have already indicated that they are going to join us again this year, and we know of at least several new congregations joining us this year! That's one of the most exciting things about Kindness Explosion - seeing God bring His church...His Body - together in unity and in love to reach out in His name to the greater Granbury/Hood County area.

We look forward to seeing each of you on Tuesday, January 27th at 11:30 AM.

Love Granbury Announces Host for Kindness Explosion 09!

Love Granbury is excited to announce that Granbury Baptist Church will be our hosts for the third annual Kindness Explosion 09, April 17-18, 2009!

Granbury Baptist is one of the fastest growing churches in Hood County and they have a tremendous passion for reaching out to the community, and we are so excited that they have agreed to host this years event.

The Kindness Explosion is a two day event where local churches of varied denominational backgrounds come together to worship and pray together, and then go out into the community and serve the community as one church - all to the glory of God! We believe that there is no greater witness than the church, as one unified body of Believers, reaching out in genuine love and compassion to the community through humble acts of kindness. We seek to redefine the church in our community by actively planting seeds of God's unconditional love in the hearts of every man, woman and child in this community.

Stay tuned for more details about KE09 coming in the next few weeks!

December Love Granbury

Hey, it's been a while since we've posted anything to the Love Granbury site...not that we haven't been "loving Granbury" for past six months...to the contrary...that's one of the reasons we haven't made any posts is because it was an enormously busy summer and fall! So many awesome things have been going on in the world of servant evangelism...or lifestyle evangelism...or outflow...or whatever you choose to call the act of the church getting outside the brick and mortar and into the community.

This past Saturday was a great example of that as we did what has become our annual December service project - free gift wrapping at the Walmart Supercenter here in Granbury. We were doing free gift wrapping and giving away free hot chocolate and coffee to all the last minute shoppers ar the Granbury Walmart Supercenter. It's always great to see the looks on people's faces when you tell them that what you're doing is absolutely free...no strings attached! A big "thank-you" to Damon Johnson at Walmart for allowing us to take over the front of his store for a few hours on Saturday.

Teaching Our Children Well

The old saying goes that "children live what they learn and they learn best what they experience." Indeed, if you think about it, life's most important lessons are best learned experientially. There are just some things you can't learn through classroom theory. You simply have to get out and get your hands dirty. This fact occurred to me again this afternoon as I watched our middle school students pull out of our church parking lot today to head off to Mission Arlington for their summer mission trip. They will spend the week helping those in the greater Arlington area who are in need. They'll be doing everything from helping serve meals, picking up donated food, clothing and furniture items, to general maintenance work. They will also be putting on two VBS sessions each afternoon for children living in low-income apartment complexes. Some of them will experience things this week they've never experienced before. Some have seldom, if ever, been outside the very sheltered world of Granbury, Texas, and many have never experienced being around abject poverty and all that goes with it. The lessons they will learn this week will stay with them for the balance of their lives and it will impact them in ways that will change how they see the world. My 19 year old daughter went to Mission Arlington in her 7th grade year and it had a lasting impact on her. She has turned out to be one of the most loving, caring, compassionate and empathetic young adults I know of, and I credit much of that to what she experienced at Mission Arlinton on her first mission trip. Even as a 7th grader, it was easy to tell that that mission trip changed her. As a parent, when you ask your teenager how a youth activity went, you're generally lucky if you get much more than, "fine" or "it was okay." The night Courtney came home from Mission Arlington, she started downloading everything and she didn't stop for several weeks. Every time she had the opportunity, she was telling someone about the different children she had encountered during that week. I have no doubt that this years group of middle school students will come back changed as well. My prayer for them this week, along with the obvious prayer that God will minister His love through them to all the children He brings into their path this week, is that God will change their own hearts...that their hearts will be broken for others and filled to overflowing with God's unconditional love. Please join with me in praying for our students and the wonderful adults who have taken time away from thier busy schedules to serve with them this week.

More KE08 Testimonies!

I continue to hear from people all over town about their wonderful impressions of the Kindness Explosion 08 event a few weeks ago. I thought I would share just a few of them with you here on the Love Granbury blog:

...a huge word of appreciation for "Love Granbury" today, Sat., I was just downtown, and the young people were handing out water/beverages and the neat red cards to everyone....what a neat and special idea and the young people were so precious......I am savoring my water! Thanks for this endeavor and what a positive influence for our community as well as the many visitors who were wandering the square. ~ M. Bingham

Just a quick note to affirm Love Granbury. As I sat with other event participants in worship this weekend, I couldn't help but think that the annual March For Jesus event is coming soon, but we have chosen not to organize that locally this year. It's funny, the major theme of March for Jesus was always a "church without walls." I sat there and thought, Love Granbury has taken up that mantle to bring together the community of Christ in Hood County...I believe it is going to ignite in our community...this is a new day and WHAT A DAY IT IS! ~ J. Phillips

Love Granbury deserves two thumbs up! Our church is already looking forward to April 17-18, 2009! It will only get bigger and better each time! ~ K. Coleman

WOW! I'm sorry we were so late to sign up, but I'm so glad we did. We will be one of the first to sign up next year!!!!!!!!!! ~ K. Deel

All any of us can say is that God is GOOD, and we give Him all the honor and praise and glory for He alone, is worthy!

Servant Evangelism Tip For The Week - Starting Small

So once you catch the vision for bringing the Good News of Jesus Christ to the world, it's common to assume the way to begin is to try to do "something really big for God!" That's certainly the "American way," but in our experience, bigger isn't always better. We recommend doing something profound: Start small. Remember our motto: small things done with great love will change the world. Small seeds grow into tall trees, and they're small for a reason - to take greatest advantage of the tiniest of openings and opportunities.

Contrary to what you may have been led to believe by television and the movies, changing the world is a pretty simple and humble process. Though it's serious business, it's often really fun, too. You don't have to write a best-selling book or become a missionary to some far away foreign land. World-changing opportunities will present themselves when you step out your door. One group of Christ-followers we know had a simple idea as they watched people walking down the boardwalk at the beach in Santa Cruz, California. They'd noticed lots of people uncomfortably brushing the sand off their feet as they walked along and wondered, "Didn't Jesus teach his followers to serve by washing feet?" One of the group members relates this story from their experience:

"Our church friends said, 'No one is going to let you touch their feet! You guys are crazy!' But they couldn't have been more wrong.

We set up at the Beach Boardwalk in Santa Cruz about 1:00 in the afternoon. There were just a handful of us. We chose a spot right at the entrance to the beach. Our supplies consisted of two fold-up chairs, two plastic containers, paper towels, liquid Dial soap, a five gallon jug to haul water, and a heart for the lost.

Our opening line went something like, 'Hi, would you like to sit down and let us rinse the sand from your feet?' We had very few refusals! In fact, we were so busy that we actually had people lined up! We took about three minutes with each person. We silently prayed as we worked, but when asked, about 95% of the people let us pray out loud with them. There were many heart touching encounters that day, but there was one I'll always remember. One gentleman from Asia kept calling one of our team members "Jesus." When we tried to correct him and explain who Jesus was, he replied, 'I know who Jesus is, and you are just like him.'

We all knew that if we showed up and were faithful, Jesus would show up, too. And let me tell you, seeing people on that beach through Jesus' eyes was absolutely amazing!"

Maybe this story doesn't sound particularly earth shattering, but we think it's exactly how God likes us to go about changing our world. This little group of board walk foot-washers was responding in the spirit of Jesus to a simple need they had observed. In fact, what they did calls to mind Ephesians 5:1-2 which tells us to, "Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God."

When we think of Jesus giving himself up as a sacrifice to God, we're likely to focus exclusively on one event that took place on the cross and forget the lifetime of service that preceded it. Jesus was "giving himself up" all the time. From the moment he awoke in the morning, to the time he went to sleep every night, his was a lifestyle dedicated to serving the Father by serving others.

It isn't one big moment in your life - one big act of service - that will change the world. It's the little things. The everyday things. It's the way you live your life moment to moment, day to day...today.

From the book, "Outflow: Outward-focused living in a self focused world" by Steve Sjogren and Dave Ping.