Hurricane Katrina North Shore Disaster Fund Update #62
This is the sixty-second update for the Hurricane Katrina disaster relief fund for the Lake Pontchartrain North Shore. This includes the Covington, Abita Springs, Mandeville, Slidell, and New Orleans, Louisiana.
We have another e-mail update from Pastor Sprague about the minstry of Trinity Church in the North Shore and New Orleans.
"The Jesus Movement
Lately, I have been asking questions of the early church that might radically influence the Jesus movement today.
1. How did an obscure, marginalized Jesus movement become the dominant faith of the western world in just a few centuries?
2. How did Christ-followers convince people they weren't vagabonds, gypsies or involved in a cult?
3. How did the Christian community in the first century go from being one, one-zillionth of the population to 56% of the Roman Empire? That is a growth rate of 40% per decade!
4. How did they grow so rapidly with no power, soldiers, weapons or buildings?
5. How did they turn the world upside down in spite of persecution - thrown to the lions in the coliseums, arrests, pressure and scattering (1 Peter 1:1). The believers lived in catacombs, pup tents and caves.How did they do it?
In 1 Peter, I found Christ-followers:
"Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts, which wage war against the soul. Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may on account of your good deeds, as they observe them; glorify God in the day of visitation."
1 Peter 2:11-12I. Lived a New Kind of Life
While the first century world had long stopped listening to believers, they still watched them. What did they see? Here are a few examples:
A. Rome was a hierarchical society with people divided into rigid classes. Everything reinforced the caste system. Clothes showed what class you were in. I know it's hard to imagine a culture where clothes reflect someone's status, but in the Roman culture it was true. What happened in the Jesus movement? Masters would serve slaves. Slaves would eat first. Slaves would weep. There was never a community like this.
B. In the ancient world, was it better to be born a boy or a girl? A boy! One historian writes, "Exposure of unwanted female infants (the practice of just abandoning them until they would die outside somewhere) was legal, morally accepted, widely practiced by all social classes in the Greco-Roman world."
Here is a letter that I just read this week. It was written during the first century by a Roman husband to his wife. Apparently, she was pregnant. This is what he writes, believing himself to be a good husband:
"Know that I am still in Alexandria. I beg you to take good care of our baby son. If you are delivered of a child before I come home, if it is a boy, keep it. If it is a girl, discard it. You have sent me word, "Don't forget me." How could I forget you? I beg you not to worry."
The Jesus movement came along and treated women differently … valued … treasured … respected and all life was sacred. Little girls and boys were prized. It is no wonder women flocked to the church.
C. Several times in the early church there were massive epidemics. One wiped out one-quarter of the population of cities in the Roman Empire and another took one-third. The Roman writer Dionysius says of the fear in the population, "They pushed sufferers away and fled from their dearest, throwing them into roads before they were dead and treated unburied corpses as dirt, hoping to avert disease."
What did Christ-followers do?
They took people in. They cared for the sick and dying. They did this sometimes at the cost of their own lives. There was never a community like this. The result was a church of irresistible influence that became a catalyst for change.
Sheldon Vanauken said, "The best argument for Christianity is Christians; their joy, their certainty, their completeness. But the strongest argument against Christianity is also Christians - when they are somber and joyless, when they are self-righteous and smug in complacent consecration, when they are narrow and repressive, then Christianity dies a thousand deaths."
II. Do Good Deeds as a Way of Life
1 Peter 2:12 "… on account of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation."
Isn't this the way of Jesus:
Matt. 5:16 They may see your good deeds
Luke 6:31-35 Love your enemies, do good to them
Acts 20:35 It is more blessed to give than to receive
Romans 12:20-21 Overcome evil with good
Gal. 6:9-10 Let us do good to all people
Eph. 2:10 Do good works
2 Thess. 3:13 Do not grow weary of doing good
1 Tim. 6:17-19 To do good, to be rich in good deeds
Titus 3:8 Engage in good deeds
Titus 2:11-14 Eager to do what is good
Heb. 10:24 Spur one another on to love and good deeds
1 Pet. 3:13 Eager to do goodIII. Do Good Deeds as a way of Life among Skeptics
Historian Will Durant said this:
"Never had the world seen such a dispensation of alms as was now organized by the Church … She helped widows, orphans, the sick or infirm, prisoners, victims of natural catastrophes; and she frequently intervened to protect the lower orders from unusual exploitation or excessive taxation. In many cases, priests gave all their property to the poor … others devoted fortunes to charitable work. The church or her rich laymen founded public hospitals on a scale never known before … Pagans admired the steadfastness of Christians in caring for the sick in cities stricken with famine or pestilence."
Isn't this what is needed today. We live in an age of skepticism and cynicism. We say, "Everyone has an angle" or "There is no free lunch." We think everyone is hyping, selling or spinning. This is where Christians and good deeds come in. It is by stealthy, radical acts of service that shock people. These free expressions of compassion don't grab the headlines, but change lives. The church of the first century was at its best, in the shadows, underground, quiet, humble, yet totally counter cultural. You couldn't keep people away. It was what everyone was looking for.
Isn't that true today? Our Kingdom weapons are brooms, rocks, visits, listening ears, open hands and generous hearts. The church is not just a "religious services provider" whose job is to make sure everyone in the church is happy while everyone else is going to hell. Rather, we gather on Sunday as the Body of Christ and then are turned loose on Monday to practice good deeds in the world. Like it or not, we are "living epistles" read by all men. The truth is "people don't go where the action is, they go where love is." Jesus said, "All men will know you are my disciples by the love you have for one another." A visual aid prepares the listener to hear the truth. Right?
IV. Share your Hope
1 Peter 3:15 says, "but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence."
As we live in a new way and practice good deeds, God will open doors. There is the opportunity to share Jesus.
This is the plan that allowed early Christians to turn the world upside down. Jesus is burning it into my heart that this is His plan for our days as well. Let's have at it.
Betting the Farm on God,
Pastor Michael Sprague (04/29/06 7:49 PM CDT)"
The poet Rodney (Gypsy) Smith wrote in a song entitled "Jesus Revealed In Me":
Christ the Transforming Light, Touches this heart of mine,
Piercing the darkest night, Making His glory shine.
Chorus:
Oh, to reflect His grace, Causing the world to see,
Love that will glow Til others shall know Jesus revealed in me.
How wonderful it would be that the whole world might see Jesus revealed in each of us.
The time is growing near for Grace Community Chapel's Student Ministries Senior High group to make the trip to Covington as Team 5 to serve with Trinity and EFCA Compassion Missions helping to rebuild lives in the gulf coast area.
Please consider a contribution to the combined efforts of this blog and Grace Community Chapel of St. Peters, MO, in raising money and volunteers for ministry teams to be sent to Trinity Evangelical Free Church in Covington, LA, to be distributed locally to the Lake Pontchartrain North Shore and New Orleans area. You will find detailed donation information by clicking here.
