This past year, I’ve had a front row seat–indeed, I’ve been fortunate to be in the thick of the action–as God’s been at work: in my life, in the lives of those around me, and in The District Church. Here are some examples:
- God’s been at work through prayer in my small group, where we’ve prayed for jobs for four guys (including myself)–each of them is now employed; and we’ve prayed for housing for four more (including myself)–each of them now has a place to live.
- God’s been at work in my small group period, where today we commissioned three new small groups out of the one I’d been leading. I felt blessed to have so many servant leaders in my group, and am so excited to see all of them stepping into what God has for them.
- God’s been at work in our church, growing our small community until we’re now stretching the space we’ve been meeting in. We wanted to find a larger space but none of those options worked out, so starting on September 25, we’ll begin having two services on Sunday morning! This is such an exciting time and we believe this is a time God is calling us, to use an analogy from 2 Kings 3, to build ditches in preparation for the rain.
And most exciting of all …
Last Sunday, we commemorated the 10th anniversary of 9/11 at our church, and in his message, Aaron spoke about how “True Awakening Leads to Reform” (we’re currently doing a sermon series drawn from Habakkuk and Acts, entitled “Awaken”). He expanded on the op-ed he’d written in the Washington Post to mark the occasion, in which he’d written to the Muslim community to apologize for the ways that we as Christians had allowed our pride and prejudices to cloud our witness. And so on Sunday, as a small act of reconciliation, we took up an offering for our Muslim brothers and sisters who are suffering from the famine in the Horn of Africa–Somalia, hardest hit, is 99% Muslim. Through various other movements of the Holy Spirit, we had offers to match whatever we raised by up to 7 times. Still, we were conscious of our size–we’re only about 150–and so we were ready to be thrilled regardless of the amount raised.
I suppose I should have left this email untitled to maintain the surprise. But when all was said and done, we as a church raised almost $15,000, and with the matching donations, we were able to raise $100,000 for famine relief efforts.
This was such humbling and spine-tinglingly exciting news, such an encouragement for me as a leader of a community of such amazingly generous people, and such a reminder that God is at work, doing great things even in the face of great suffering and tragedy.
May we all (continue to) see God at work in all things.
