Being Good News

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.   Luke 4:18

Here at PCC, we're thrilled to join Jesus in His mission to change the world one heart at a time.  Critical to our mission are our weekly gatherings on Sunday.  Because Jesus gathered weekly with people in His equivalent of church, (Luke 4:16 As was his custom...), we gather weekly.

There is a critical distinctive of PCC, and it is one of our core essentials; we don't see gathering every Sunday as the end all.  Sundays are crucial to our mission, but they are not our mission!  Sundays are a means to a greater end.  As people changing communities, our goal on Sunday is to encourage, equip, empower, and then deploy you to join Jesus on mission here on the Peninsula and in the world.  Whether it is the 10/40 window or the 9-5 window, we want to equip you as Christ's ambassadors, wherever you are.

This week I was reminded of how people notice when we actually act like Jesus.  The New York Times did an article featuring our role in working with the PE program in the Redwood City schools.  That work is the fruit of a partnership with Serve the Peninsula and our Community Center.  It is an amazing partnership meeting real needs.  You can read the article here.

Jesus was very clear in His first sermon to His hometown crowd (His "homeys"!) that He was all about good news for the poor.  I believe that means both spiritually poor people (like me!) and physically poor people.  I have discovered that when I prioritize what Jesus prioritized, both on Sunday and every other day of the week, I get a sense of living into the very reason I was placed on Planet Earth.

I want to invite you to join in on what God is doing on the Peninsula: being good news to the poor.  Join the food distribution at Hawes or Garfield Elementary Schools where a store of food from Second Harvest Food Bank is set up and people who have been screened by the county are served.  These are families who attend one of those schools and are on the free or reduced lunch program.  They are beautiful people who you will have the opportunity to both serve and get to know.

The distributions happen at Garfield School, Menlo Park the 2nd Tuesday of every month and at Hawes Elementary, Redwood City the 2nd and 4th Wednesday of every month.  They start at 3:30 and go until 5pm, but you can participate for any portion of that time.

I will never forget what one pastor in Mexico told me as we were building a kitchen for his church to hold a feeding program in his poor village, "These people need food in their stomachs before they get Jesus in their hearts!"

This weekend, we will look at the close of Jesus' inaugural sermon to His homeys in Nazareth.  How was it received, you ask?  Read for yourself in Luke 4:22-30.  I look forward to being with you and thank God we have no cliffs on our campus!

I love being your pastor.