Well, Fall is upon us and it is time to warm up the blog and talk about what God is doing. There is some news and updates, as well as a thought I had about broken stuff.
You see, my car just died. It didn't suffer, and it wasn't in any pain. It just died a natural death of old age. Sure it had wrinkles (I called them smile lines) and emitted great quantities of noxious fumes, but, nonetheless, I loved the old girl.
Why, just a couple of days before her demise I was giving her a bath and I thought I detected a tear coming from under her windshield wipers. She must have known, in the way cars do, that this was to be our last car wash together, in this life.
Ah well, as I think about all the investment and care we put into our vehicles, I'm reminded that we are challenged to care for this thing called church. You know, the gathering of people that follow Jesus.
Think about it. A car cannot just be left to it's own care, it needs gas, oil, new tires, the occasional tune up and parts break down and need to be replaced. Any group of people needs the same maintenance, but the kicker is that we are both the mechanics and the components of this contraption.
God has been talking to me a lot about the value of the parts that make up the whole. I mean, everybody loves the spark plugs that ignite conversation and action, or the pistons that gets things moving, or the tires that actually put rubber to the road.
But what about the radiator that keeps the rhetoric from overheating, or the wind shield wiper that does the jobs no one else wants to do, or the air bag that everyone thinks is just full of itself, but may save a life one day.
Anyhow, we've got a newsletter out that goes into this topic a bit as I write about the almost businesslike way we are challenged to live together. It's also got news about what Shepherd's Call is doing in the Kitsap community, an announcement about our fresh new website (check it out), and a special report on the Liberia mission coming up in January.
This Liberia thing really captures the idea of what I'm getting at here. This is an opportunity to give a native Liberian mission the tools it needs to be a mechanic to the followers of Jesus in that country. This trip will be to lay the groundwork for literally sending a bulldozer over there, with the objective of unifying the churches as they work shoulder to shoulder to repair one another's roads. It's a long story of how this idea came to be, so read the newsletter for more details.
In case you are wondering, I did get a replacement for my old van that died. And the timing of that was blessing, because I was just starting the Fall semester at seminary and needed a working vehicle to get to the ferry. God is good.
But you know what else is good? The comment question of the day, which is, "So, what part are you?"
Be sure to leave your interesting, creative, humorous or insightful responses in the comment section below, or on FaceBook. And if you have any questions for me, post them and I will respond to them here. I'm Locke Morgan with Restoration Ministries Worldwide, thanks for watching.
