Friday, February 22, 2013

People Changing Communities

Give justice to the poor and the orphan; uphold the rights of the oppressed and the destitute. Rescue the poor and helpless; deliver them from the grasp of evil people. Psalm 82:3-4

We take People Changing Communities pretty seriously.  Whether it is locally here on the Peninsula or globally, People Being Changed by God’s Love and Communities Being Changed through God’s People keeps us up at night and gets us out of bed in the morning.

As I write this a team of PCC’ers are flying at 35,000 feet in transit for their 30+ hour trek to the Congo to join over 3,000 Congolese Covenant Pastors who are travelling mostly by bike and foot, for their annual Pastor’s Conference.  Our team has been tasked with teaching and training the Pastors, teaching at a University in the area and dedicating a brand new 80-bed orphanage that PCC built. We are linking arms with our brothers and sisters in the Congo and also linking arms in an unprecedented partnership with World Vision, the world’s largest relief organization to see a community changed for God’s glory.

The situation in Congo is both dire and hopeful. At PCC, we sense this inescapable call: to stand with our Congolese friends to turn around the most over-looked province in the neediest country of the world. Joining together with World Vision, this unprecedented partnership will provide a community transformation, in addition to the spiritual work carried out through the congregations of the Covenant Church. This proven community development model for sustainable long-term solutions is built on World Vision’s 60 years of experience building a better world for children.
Through the Covenant Denomination and World Vision unprecedented partnership, other large relief organizations (Like USAID for instance) have pledged millions of dollars in resources so that for every $1 in sponsorship, $3 in goods in-kind show up in the Congo.  That is quite a good return on our investment, don’t you think? In addition, we each get the privilege, (and if we are parents, we each have the opportunity to give our kids the privilege) of making missions personal through being able to develop a relationship and interact with our sponsored child from the Congo.

You can discover more by visiting the Covenant Kids Congo website. For now will you join me in praying for this campus-wide initiative?  All across campus, on both sides of the bridge we are asking God to change this community forever…one child at a time.

This Sunday, we will pick up where we left off last Sunday again looking at Jesus and our stuff.  We get to study a parable unique to Luke’s Gospel and very well known.  Read up about The parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31 and I look forward to being with you this Sunday.  And by the way, thank you for being a people who are so passionate about changing communities!

I love being your pastor!