Last month I worked really hard on a big event. I called it Dia de Familia. The idea was to invite the community to a one day event where they could do a craft, have some food, take a family picture, and of course i could meet them and try to convince them to check out the service the following day. Well on the day of the event it had rained an was threatening to rain again. I got a sick feeling in my stomach of the thought of all this work going to waste because no one showed.
Guess what... no one showed.
So here i was trying to have a good attitude in spite of the fact that no one came to the "Big Event" that i put together. I was hiding it well, cause i was pretty upset. I was angry at God for the weather and the lack of response form the community. Not to mention i had spent over 400 dollars on food that was left over. What am i going to do with all this food?
After a few days and lots of prayer and conversation with God I felt a little better. I still felt like i had failed though. Then it hit me as i drove past the day-laborers on Paramount. I counted them 20, 30, 40...
At that moment God said feed them. I want you to feed them. So I started to talk about it and people were excited about it too. The next day we made 40 burritos and distributed them to these guys.
The funny thing is I felt like i had just been through a test and somehow passed it.
My pastor met with me a few days after the failed event and mentioned how positive i was. I then came clean and told him that i was just trying to be positive though i was very po'd. Can i say that? Anyway it was a few days later that God spoke to me about the day-laborers.
As i was giving the food away i felt that God had taught me a lesson. You see when i came out here God had said I want you to minister to hispanic people. That was why i came out here. He never said i want you to start and grow a large church. I guess i forgot that over the last few month.
So i am refocused again on the primary mission. Ministering to Hispanic people. If God wants to grow the church cool, but that will not happen at the expense of real ministry.
Of course you can have both, but i just had to learn the lesson.
Lesson # 40 in church planting. Seek first the kingdom! Anything else is secondary.
1 comment:
Great lesson 'Los! I'm sorry I missed the first 39 lessons ;-)
I wonder if that may be the route that God is asking Norte to go with all the "events." Simply loving people, building report, and proving to them that the church is not just one more place that wants to use them. The church is a place that wants to serve them and then be a platform for them to serve others.
Keep it up man!
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