Also, don't forget that this Sunday is our big Christmas Offering. Our goal is to raise $10,000 this Sunday for three main ministries:
- The Masana Mission to feel street kids in Mozambique
- Advertising for our marriage series in February
- Local missions and outreach
Thought for the Week
"The seed sprouts and grows -- he doesn't know how." Mark 4:27
A changed life is nothing more than a beautiful miracle. Today I ran across an old friend. I say 'friend,' but we met under auspicious circumstances. He was drunk, maybe high, and contemplating suicide. I was watching Monday Night Football at a Sports Bar and drinking a Diet Coke. We talked until 1 a.m. That was probably five or six years ago. He was a mess. I just tried to love him. We exchanged phone numbers, which I worried might be a mistake. In the coming months, I'd get occasional calls at 3 a.m. I tried to love him. I wasn't sure what to say, but I loved him. I just tried to be a friend and spoke truth in love. His life was a roller coaster for a while. I tried to get him to come to church, but I don't think he ever came. Then I saw him one night with his fiance...and he looked great. Then he called me to marry them. Then I ran into him today...and he looked like a million bucks. Whole. He'd been back to church. He's working a good job. And I just tried to love him that one time late that night. Just one seed. Seed's are mysterious. We're not sure how it works. We just see little leaves sticking out of the dirt. But you have to plant it. Keep loving people. Keep planting seeds in lives that seem lost and hopeless. Keep speaking truth in love. Keep being present with people. That's our call -- to plant seeds. We don't do the growing part. That's God's deal. We plant. Be a seed planter. When you do, every once in a while you run into a green leaf at a coffee shop and remember when you put that seed in the dirt. Thank you, Jesus, for the miracle of growing.
In Christ,
Carter
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