West Cocoa Chat

Romans 12:1 - Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.

Dan Holland from the Metro Church of Christ in Orlando spoke on this verse last night at our church. He had a great message. In my opinion, the cause of Christ would be greatly enhanced if his people thought of worship as all we do in life. Perhaps the many unfortunate times that Christians have acted in an un-Christ like way towards each other in the name of “defending the truth” could have been avoided. Dan mentioned the danger if Christians “compartmentalizing their lives” if they don’t see their life as worship. In other words, acting one way when we’re out their on the “front lines of life” and acting differently when we’re inside a church building.

Speaking of life as being worship, our youth group is preparing to embark to the banks of the Ohio River in Parkersburg, West Virginia, to participate in the Mid-Ohio Valley Workcamp. That’s right, we just got back from a week of Bible Camp and now, 7 days later, we’re headed out on a major road trip again. In fact, the wife and I will be celebrating our 25th on the Tuesday of Workcamp.

Just so you don’t think I’m “romantically challenged,” I do plan on taking Barb out to dinner that night and then staying somewhere off campus (Ohio Valley University) for the night. Hopefully I’ll have all of the paint out of my hair before the evening’s activities.

Back to our trip, when we arrive on Sunday afternoon along with over 600 other teens, we’ll be broken up into “Work Crews.” Each crew gets a home to scrape, prime, and paint in 4 days. All of this at no expense to the home owner who we hope to be “Jesus” to during our week.

I’ll end with my favorite Workcamp story. One of the board members, Teddy, told us how he was speaking with an elderly lady whose home he was proposing to paint. As with most of us when we’re told something is free, she wanted to know the “catch.” Her neighbor happens to be in the living room with them and heard Teddy’s proposal. She immediately said, “Sue, (fictional homeowner’s name) these people are from the Churches of Christ. This is what they do every summer.”

Teddy’s point was, isn’t it nice to be known as a people that serves and not folks who “don’t believe in music” or think they’re the only ones going to Heaven.

Got to go buy a paint brush and scraper. Love you guys.