614 Restoration’s Shine Initiative

Shine initiatives are designed to deploy students into the places in our city most in need of restoration by the power of God.  As we open our hearts and our lives to the people in our city, the light of Jesus shines through us and the vision of citywide restoration begins to become a reality.  If we shrink back, restoration will never come. 

Shine seeks to provide students with practical opportunities to engage the people in our city through Christ-centered service and Spirit-led proclamation of the gospel.  Students have the opportunity to participate in at least one organized activity each month such as helping at the soup kitchen or the homeless shelter, working with children in after-school programs, reaching out to the families of those in jail, assisting the elderly with yardwork or home maintenance projects, and much more.  To find out about upcoming Shine opportunities, see our Events page.

The Scriptures are clear–if we desire to see restoration in the people and places in our city, we must shine forth.  The love of Christ compels us.

“If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday…Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.”  Isaiah 58:9-10,12 (emphasis mine)

No Words Really…Just A Prayer

Father God have mercy on us.  Stir our hearts.  Move us beyond mere emotions.  The love of Christ compelling us, Your Holy Spirit leading us and empowering us…not our will, but Yours be done.  Awaken us from our slumber and our stupor.  Start with me.  Start right where I am.  Then lead me wherever you want me to go.  Help me cast down the idol of self-preservation and pick up my cross.  ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.’ Luke 9:23-24 

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
“God, I pray Thee, light these idle sticks of my life and may I burn for Thee. Consume my life, my God, for it is Thine. I seek not a long life, but a full one, like you, Lord Jesus.”
Jim Elliot, husband, father, martyred at age 29 taking the gospel to the Auca Indians in Ecuador

A Disciple’s Renewal

A friend of mine posted this on his blog recently.

A Disciple’s Renewal

O my Saviour,
help me.
I am so slow to learn, so prone to forget, so weak to climb;
I am in the foothills when I should be on the heights;
I am pained by my graceless heart,
my prayerless days,
my poverty of love,
my sloth in the heavenly race,
my sullied conscience,
my wasted hours,
my unspent opportunities.
I am blind while light shines around me:
take the scales from my eyes,
grind to dust the evil heart of unbelief.
Make it my chiefest joy to study thee,
meditate on thee,
gaze on thee,
sit like Mary at thy feet,
lean like John upon thy breast,
appeal like Peter to thy love,
count like Paul all things dung.
Give me increase and progress in grace so that there may be
more decision in my character,
more vigour in my purposes,
more elevation in my life,
more fervour in my devotion,
more constancy in my zeal.
As I have a position in the world,
keep me from making the world my position;
May I never seek in the creature
what can be found only in the creator;
Let not faith cease from seeking thee until it vanishes into sight.
Ride forth in me, thou king of kings and lord of lords,
that I may live victoriously, and in victory attain my end.

From The Valley of Vision:A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions

$3 Worth of God

I recently came across this old poem (or part of a poem) by Wilbur Rees entitled $3 Worth of God.  It made me cry.

I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.
Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine.
I don’t want enough of God to make me love a black man or pick beets with a migrant.
I want ecstasy, not transformation.
I want warmth of the womb, not a new birth.
I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack.
I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.