outside the "meeting"

www.networkvine.org

As most of you know I have been "harping" on the meeting mentality that ham-strings our Christian culture. I want to introduce you to my friends at "The Way" in Gallatin, Tn. I ask you to read this, not to duplicate their work, but to seek how the Lord would have YOU operate "outside the box". I asked my friend Jason to send me the following description of their CIA efforts. Your community may be following the Lords Voice in unique ways as well. If so, please feel free to drop me a line and explain!

In Jesus,
Mickey Mooney


(from Jason Duncan on behalf of The Way www.theway247.com)

A couple of years ago we came up with the idea of a forming a ministry called "CIA," which stands for Christians In Action, that would offer free help for widows, handicapped, elderly and other needy folks in our community. We started running a business-card sized ad in the local newspaper that simply tells people to call the CIA if they need help with anything. Since the ad began, we have had dozens of responses from people who are truly in need.
We have mowed lawns, cleared debris, done tornado clean-up, painted houses, planted bushes, and hauled off trash. What is sad is that many of the people we have helped describe themselves as members of a local church. Nevertheless, we have been able to show the practical love of Jesus to them in a way that their home church was unable to do for whatever reason. One such widow had called us to help her several times. I finally decided to call her preacher and explain her needs. He was unaware of her needs and was happy to tell me that they would be taking care of her from now on. It was a beautiful picture of unity between two groups of followers of Jesus.
Many times we do our service projects on Sunday mornings. This raises many questions from the people we help. "Are you guys Christians?" "Where do you go to church?" "Why are you here on a Sunday morning when you should be at church?" We love answering these questions. We get to explain that what we are doing for them is how we worship and how we serve our Father.
There are several widows that we have helped who are "repeat customers" as it were. They often call us to come help with odd jobs around the house. One such lady calls me every month or so to ask about my kids and ask if I can bring them by for milk and cookies. She is so sweet.
Doing this type of work isn't always cheap. Of course, since we do not have ongoing bills like most churches do, we have lots of money to spend on helping the poor. But as you might imagine, we often times run low on funds due to the large jobs we sometimes take on. This has been yet another powerful testimony of how Father is in control. We have had at least one widow whom we have helped donate quite a bit of money to us to help others like we have helped her. She didn't have the money herself to have her home repair work done, but the estate that she manages for a deceased friend provides financial assistance to organizations that help the elderly. In this way she was able to get the help she desperately needed and couldn't afford, and we were able to help others who otherwise would not have received help.
Has the community around us noticed? Well, people aren't coming to Jesus in droves because we are painting houses, but we are confident that some people are seeing Jesus for who he really is because of this ministry. When one of the painters we hired to do a job for us that we couldn't do asked why we do this, he was visibly impressed that we weren't wasting money on church buildings and salaries, but rather helping poor widows like the one in the house he was painting. That is what this is all about. Showing the love of Jesus in a practical way. If father wills it, we will continue to do this until he sends Jesus back to get us.

Simply,Jason Duncanjedsled@gmail.com