Baptism-Death to self...

"I wet my pants too."

Christianity isn't about pretending that we have it all together. It is caring, loving, and sympathizing. It is having the understanding that we all have sinned. It is a horrible place to get in religion when compassion is replaced with judgment. It is at that point we truly forget who we are...Sinners saved by a gracious God. It is like the thirsty who discover a fountain in the desert later when other parched travelers come desiring a drink they down on their thirst. It is a strange and foreign thing to no longer be willing to be numbered among those who are in need of God's grace. We all need it. We all require it. Scripture tells us that everyone of us has gone his or her own way, the wrong way. By contrast how sweet is the companionship of those who understand that we don't grow to sinlessness we simple grow to understand how much we need Jesus, every day. In the following story there is one who recolonized the fault of another as fault of her own, and instead of pretending she didn't have the problem she did the most compassionate thing she could. She loved.


Come with me to a third grade classroom...... There is a nine-year-old kid
sitting at his desk and all of a sudden, there is a puddle between his
feet and the front of his pants are wet. He thinks his heart is going to
stop because he cannot possibly imagine how this has happened. It's never
happened before, and he knows that when the boys find out he will never
hear the end of it. When the girls find out, they'll never speak to him
again as long as he lives.


The boy believes his heart is going to stop; he puts his head down and
prays this prayer, 'Dear God, this is an emergency! I need help now! Five
minutes from now I'm dead meat.'


He looks up from his prayer and here comes the teacher with a look in her
eyes that says he has been discovered.


As the teacher is walking toward him, a classmate named Susie is carrying
a goldfish bowl that is filled with water. Susie trips in front of the
teacher and inexplicably dumps the bowl of water in the boy's lap.


The boy pretends to be angry, but all the while is saying to himself,
'Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord!'


Now all of a sudden, instead of being the object of ridicule, the boy is
the object of sympathy. The teacher rushes him downstairs and gives him
gym shorts to put on while his pants dry out. Al l the other children are
on their hands and knees cleaning up around his desk. The sympathy is
wonderful. But as life would have it, the ridicule that should have been
his has been transferred to someone else - Susie.


She tries to help, but they tell her to get out. 'You've done enough, you
klutz!'


Finally, at the end of the day, as they are waiting for the bus, the boy
walks over to Susie and whispers, 'You did that on purpose, didn't you?'
Susie whispers back, 'I wet my pants once too.'

Targeted

“Jack of all trades, master of none.” Ever heard it? I have, and not only have I heard it but I have lived it! I have been so involved with so much at times that I was no good at any of it! I have even caught myself giving myself permission not to strive for excellence because “I have too much going on”. Ever done that? Churches do the same thing. They do it all the time. They are so focused on volume, they lose quality. A great statement we all need to keep is “We can’t do everything.” So if I can’t do everything, nor can my church, what can I do or better yet what should I do?



Over the past year, I have been working on discovering what Mercy’s Cross is good at. What I mean is that sweet spot of God’s will for us as a community of believers. It is like trying to find where we are talented, positioned, or gifted in. I believe I have found it! We are gifted in a few very strategic areas:

1. Connecting Seekers to Christ and His Church-Ones who are wondering about the question of God. Is he real? Why believe? Why Church? Is the Bible true? Etc.
2. Healing the broken-The Broken are those who have lost hope and need love and support to walk into a future
3. The Addicted- Are those who are shackled to the pain of their hurts, habits, and hang-ups.
4. The Widows-Single moms.
5. The Orphans- Foster children in our community.



These are the people we see who have the greatest spiritual needs AND we are best positioned to help. (disclaimer…These are not the ONLY people in our community who have spiritual needs but they are the most needy and the best target for what we are good at in ministry). The next step is to address how we can minister to these for the highest spiritual return. Still working on that…