“I don’t believe God wants our church life to be centered on buildings and services. Instead, God wants our churches to be focused on active discipleship, mission, and the pursuit of unity.”

-Francis Chan & Preston Sprinkle

Erasing Hell

 

What a month to reflect on! According to the American calendar, November is the month of Thanksgiving. However, in the Bible calendar, every day is a day of Thanksgiving. If only we could celebrate with the same meal every evening!

In Happy Town Next Step partners with a growing and thriving church called Turner AME. At Turner AME  there exists a daycare facility that averages 60 to 70 children each day. These kids’ ages span from 3 months to 4 years and they are attending Monday through Friday. Equipped with two teachers per class, caring for the children from 6AM to 6PM each day makes for extremely long hours that really no wage could account for. The Daycare usually has enough to do what they must in way of resources, but could always use more cleaning supplies, tissues, books, toys, blankets and other educational tools. For a while I’ve wondered what it could look like for people and churches in the area to step up and meet these needs. We as The Church are called to be The Church and this seemed like an excellent opportunity.

One of the many valuable things I’ve learned about Turner Church, is that they are a prayer reliant church. It is preached and well known in the congregation that they rely heavily on the provision of God to meet their needs. I attended Turner a month or so ago when Pastor Kenneth was preaching on the Lord’s faithfulness. He shared a story of an anonymous check coming in days before the electricity was about to be shut off at the church that week. What’s more is that the check was written out for the perfect amount due, you can’t call that a coincidence.

Pastor Kenneth reminds his church and community often of the Lord’s goodness and provision through a dependence on Him and prayer. I have seen evidence of this truth over the past few weeks as I’ve been privileged to be a part of bridging the gap between church and community. It started with a small visit a few weeks ago on a Friday morning, and it only took two women joining in with me to love on those kiddos for a few hours. These ladies had never heard of this daycare just 30 minutes away from them. But once they heard, they wanted to know how to be more actively involved!

God instilled a passion in their hearts, and they wondered what more they could do. They rallied with their friends and small group from their church, and what blessings have flown through this simple connection! The Daycare has been given donations of a few rocking chairs so they can rock those beautiful babies to sleep, funds for more supplies, and has gained more helping hands through local volunteers.

To me, the best part about this connection isn’t the finances or even the awesome rocking chairs. The core of our walk with Jesus is relationship and the part that gets me most excited is seeing the church be relational,  give their time, and invest themselves.