What Will Happen Next?

What just happened?!?

That was my thought when I found out that God had moved in the hearts of Pointers on the main campus to adopt 180 families in Pullman so that they could be valued this Christmas and into 2011. We had prepared for 100 and asked God to do something really cool – and He reminded us that our cool is much smaller than His.

That outpouring of generosity came on the heels of watching 190 big boxes of food go out of our main campus doors to be delivered by Pointers to families in Hamilton/Holland/Zeeland/Hudsonville that also needed encouragement moving into 2011. The families giving and the people receiving participated in the two sides of the Gospel – giving and receiving a gift. This too was an act of generosity as the food was donated and the results of the actions will be relationships where people will be valued.

Also in the closing weeks of the year something really cool happened at our Moran Park Campus on 22nd and River in Holland. The faith community there decided to put a bulletin board up so that those who had needs could write them on a slip of paper and post them and those who could meet needs could go to the board and take the ones they were called to take action on. It is cool. Dozens of acts of kindness and generosity have taken place – but more importantly dozens of acts of love have been executed. That’s church.

As I write, a team of GVSU students are in Comayagua, Honduras serving the “least of these” in the orphanages and churches we partner with there. They will spend their week loving the kids and being the image of a God who cares and of Jesus who came to them. They will serve to better their living conditions, teach, and just “be” – spending time and attention that communicates that those they are loving have value and matter to us and to Jesus. These students are spending their own resources to reveal the Gospel.

I don’t have space to write about Mosaic – a rising movement of families adopting orphans in Michigan and around the world and families providing foster care for children and families in crisis. I could also write paragraphs about addicts and felons recovering and re-entering society. Marriages have found healing and hearts have been mended. In all these situations people have found a relationship with Jesus. There is so much … God did miracles in 2010!

What will happen next?!?   

I am anxious to sit at my desk in 2012 and write this same article so I can reflect on what God will do in the next 12 months as you and I just listen to the Spirit and follow His leadership. I want to write about how you and I spontaneously followed the Spirit’s leadership to give our time and attention to those in our homes and neighborhoods who God knows feel undervalued and ignored or run over by the world they live in. I want to write about random acts of kindness that we engage in just because it is what Jesus would do. I know I will write about how you and I were able to show people Jesus and then tell them about Him because our actions of love and grace are so peculiar and odd in a world of self-focus and speed.

“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord's people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen.” (The Apostle Paul in Ephesians 3:14-21) 

That was Paul’s prayer for his friends and it in mine for all of you – my friends.

Happy New Year!

Jim