Sunday, September 11, 2005
The Real World
Today was our first "post summer" worship at Central. Everyone was back from vacation as well the group of teens and adults that attended the youth rally "Sonquest" in Orlando this past weekend. The spirit was really good during Sunday School, fellowship time, and worship.
Today was also the first time a family of 10, the Martin’s, worshiped with us. The Martin family consists of Dean (no joke) and Michelle, their 3 children; Michelle’s Grandmother, Aunt, sister, and her two kids. They’re from New Orleans and their home was next to one of the many levees that failed. Their home is now completely covered by the contaminated floodwaters of Lake Pontchartrain.
Dean works for a construction company who is building a new bridge over the Indian River in our area. The company told Dean that he could work on the bridge until the conclusion of the project. So the Martins (all 10 of them) have been living in 2 hotel rooms just north of our church in Cocoa.
The Lord brought them to our attention through a relationship between a receptionist at the hotel and one of our members, Lori Melzer. Don (our preacher) and I visited with Michelle this past Wednesday night. Several times we asked Michelle what could the church do for her family? Her eyes watered each time as she explained that it was tough for her and her family to accept this kind of help. Seems the Catholic Church they were members of was very involved with helping the poor of New Orleans. The only thing she came out and asked for was some "normalcy" for her teen daughters. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that God doesn’t perform miracles anymore. Just kidding. Anyway, we told her about our church’s youth group and invited her to bring her daughters to Sunday School. We assured her that our teens would lovingly accept her girls and help them to feel good about being with teens again.
You would have thought being Catholic she would have asked about the differences between Churches of Christ and the Catholic Church. The only thing she asked for was the time of our services.
It was quite encouraging to all of us when they showed up today. Central has already surrounded them with love. In fact one of our members, Pat Rust, a real-estate agent worked on finding them a home to rent. Well, he did more than "work on it." You see Pat couldn’t find them anything that they could afford to rent. So he took care of the problem himself. He bought a house with his own money and is now renting it to the Martin’s.
And that brings me to a comment that Don made in his sermon today. He said one of the results of tragedies like Hurricane Katrina is that for a moment, we get to see what God really intended for the Kingdom. During 9/11 it was a picture of the Congress; Republicans, Democrats, and independents arm in arm on the Capitol Steps singing God Bless America. Doing what we should be doing all along as an united people. And now people like Lori and Pat (and thousands of others) laying aside our petty differences that separate us throughout the denominational world, and ministering in the name of Jesus to people without regard to race, creed, or religion. That my friends is the "real world."
Today was also the first time a family of 10, the Martin’s, worshiped with us. The Martin family consists of Dean (no joke) and Michelle, their 3 children; Michelle’s Grandmother, Aunt, sister, and her two kids. They’re from New Orleans and their home was next to one of the many levees that failed. Their home is now completely covered by the contaminated floodwaters of Lake Pontchartrain.
Dean works for a construction company who is building a new bridge over the Indian River in our area. The company told Dean that he could work on the bridge until the conclusion of the project. So the Martins (all 10 of them) have been living in 2 hotel rooms just north of our church in Cocoa.
The Lord brought them to our attention through a relationship between a receptionist at the hotel and one of our members, Lori Melzer. Don (our preacher) and I visited with Michelle this past Wednesday night. Several times we asked Michelle what could the church do for her family? Her eyes watered each time as she explained that it was tough for her and her family to accept this kind of help. Seems the Catholic Church they were members of was very involved with helping the poor of New Orleans. The only thing she came out and asked for was some "normalcy" for her teen daughters. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that God doesn’t perform miracles anymore. Just kidding. Anyway, we told her about our church’s youth group and invited her to bring her daughters to Sunday School. We assured her that our teens would lovingly accept her girls and help them to feel good about being with teens again.
You would have thought being Catholic she would have asked about the differences between Churches of Christ and the Catholic Church. The only thing she asked for was the time of our services.
It was quite encouraging to all of us when they showed up today. Central has already surrounded them with love. In fact one of our members, Pat Rust, a real-estate agent worked on finding them a home to rent. Well, he did more than "work on it." You see Pat couldn’t find them anything that they could afford to rent. So he took care of the problem himself. He bought a house with his own money and is now renting it to the Martin’s.
And that brings me to a comment that Don made in his sermon today. He said one of the results of tragedies like Hurricane Katrina is that for a moment, we get to see what God really intended for the Kingdom. During 9/11 it was a picture of the Congress; Republicans, Democrats, and independents arm in arm on the Capitol Steps singing God Bless America. Doing what we should be doing all along as an united people. And now people like Lori and Pat (and thousands of others) laying aside our petty differences that separate us throughout the denominational world, and ministering in the name of Jesus to people without regard to race, creed, or religion. That my friends is the "real world."
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By the way, our church of about 240 collected about $8,500 for the victims of Katrina. Way to go Central!
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