by Nikki Dieker | Sep 13, 2023 | Featured, Headlines |
I had the privilege of joining our high schoolers on the trip to the Dominican Republic this summer. What an incredible experience! I had so many takeaways from my time, but one thing I experienced so clearly is the beauty of the Church. The global church is something I haven’t had much opportunity to see in such a tangible way before. Situated right here in the middle of the country, it’s so easy to equate the-big-C-church with the American church and forget the diverse expression of the Body of Christ. I am so thankful for the chance to expand my understanding more fully, to glimpse the beauty of our worldwide church family.
We began our week visiting a house church in Santo Domingo. Anna opened her home to us, and we more than doubled the size of their church that evening. The folding chairs multiplied like loaves and fishes as we all squeezed into her patio along with Napoleon and his family, Anna’s sister, Abuela, Gordy, and Bear. Anna led the majority of the service in English, and Nicole translated for us during discussion time so we could all understand one another. While the church service was so foreign in some ways, it was also so familiar. Communion bookended our time together; we took the bread at the beginning and closed the service with the wine. We sang familiar worship songs, and in between shared a meal. These “strangers” are our family. We have all been adopted by the same Father. These people we had not ever met are our brothers and sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles, grandmothers. We share the same spirit and we could feel it. What a beautiful foretaste of heaven!
Every day our group headed to a university in Santo Domingo to attend English immersion classes and help the students work on their pronunciation and grammar. Every day we packed our lunches and got there an hour before class to have conversations with the students. Tons of students came to talk with us. It was such a joy to make new Dominican friends, hear some of their stories, share some of ours, and the reason for our hope in Christ.
One particular conversation really stuck with me. A woman came and sat on a bench next to me and we started talking. It quickly became apparent that I knew more Spanish than she knew English, and I do not speak much Spanish! But somehow we were able to semi-understand each other. She said that her 18-year-old daughter was a student at the university and each day this mother would walk her daughter to school. Somehow our “conversation” turned to faith and she said something along the lines of “El Dios es primero.” Forgive me Spanish speakers for my limited vocabulary and faulty memory, but it roughly means “God is first.” I agreed with her and we spoke of our love for God. I don’t even know her name but I just teared up and said “hermanas,” sisters. This woman, who I had never met and will most likely never meet again on this side of heaven, is my sister. Our day to day lives are so different, we could barely understand each other, and she is my sister. Someday we will stand before the throne together and worship.
Later on in the week we went out to dinner and I was not feeling well. Anna from the house church and her family joined us. When Anna realized how I felt, she offered to take me back to her house and care for me until I felt better. And she meant it! She was willing to take a basically total stranger home, a sick stranger at that, and care for me. Because while we are strangers, we are also family! I didn’t take her up on her kind offer, and was feeling better the next day.
This experience with the Church got me thinking about my local church family and what it means to be family to those I see Sunday after Sunday. Sometimes it takes a shift in perspective to see what is right in front of you or be reminded of what is right in front of you. The people sitting in the worship center with me on a Sunday morning are my sisters and my brothers. In a very real sense.
The New Testament is full of references to believers as family, and when those words were penned, your survival depended on your extended family. Everyone had to pitch in and work for the family to survive. Which really made me think about how I am caring for the people in my church. What have I sacrificed for their good? Am I willing to take a sick sister into my home and care for them?
And, how are we all using our gifts and talents for the benefit and building up of the church? How are we meeting physical needs, spiritual, emotional? Letting others know of our needs so that they can be met? God has created each one of us uniquely and together we are the body of Christ.
The big C church and the little C church needs all of us. It’s not meant to be a place where we spend an hour on Sunday and then go about our business. It is a family and we need each other.
by Caleb McLellan | Sep 6, 2023 | Featured, Headlines |
Weeks have passed since the tragic fires on Maui. Although for decades the sugar cane company regularly planned a controlled burn of large harvested fields, no one seemed prepared for the raging wildfires that blew through the historic town of Lahaina, claiming hundreds of lives and thousands of homes.
A Personal Connection
My wife Sharon and I are Christ Community staff members. We met and married on Maui in 2007. We built a business there, and had a community we loved. Sharon has three sisters whose families still live on the island. Thankfully, none of our family lives on the west side of the island that was devastated, but numerous close friends have lost everything. Friends with two young boys that we worked with every week narrowly escaped with their lives and lost all their possessions. Rodrigo and Michelle, with their two little ones, escaped just behind them and are thankfully safe.
Many, however, did not know of the danger and were trapped in their homes and cars, unable to escape the scorching heat and smoke. Another friend, Josh, lost his father in the tragedy.
This devastating event has had a dramatic impact on us, and we struggle to comprehend the horrific destruction. Historic buildings and locations that held many memories for our family are now leveled, and the best thing we know to do is pray. Pray for the many families who have lost not only their houses and possessions but also family members, their daily routines, their neighbors, their jobs, their community, and essentially their entire sense of home.
Meeting Needs
There are undoubtedly many practical needs, but on a deeper level, there are tremendous mental and emotional needs. Those on Maui who lost homes have lost everything, and those who have not lost their homes will likely suffer from survivor’s guilt, among other things.
In a recent update on social media, Sharon found encouragement through our affiliation with ReachGlobal, which serves as the outreach branch of the EFCA. Some of her friends are church leaders on Maui and were offered training in post-trauma recovery. The training was provided through financial support that came from ReachGlobal.
Sharon said, “Knowing that our church, Christ Community, contributed to the community relief endeavors in Maui through ReachGlobal meant a lot to me.”
Jo and Mike Barr, members of the Leawood congregation, are parents to a daughter who resides in Maui. Gemma and her son were forced to evacuate their residence due to the fires, which destroyed homes only a few blocks away. Fortunately, their own home was safe but entirely covered with soot from the fires. The entire community is coming together to navigate this new reality after the fire.
The video attached provides a few firsthand insights from Gemma into the situation, including her expression of gratitude for the contributions made by churches like Christ Community, who have been instrumental in assisting the Maui residents by sending resources.
Ways to Help
As we consider our neighbors in Maui, here are a few ways to embrace support opportunities and extend our hands in compassion to make a meaningful impact:
- Pray – That the people of Maui will encounter the love of God in a real and tangible way through the community of the Church.
- Give – Christ Community Church allocated $10,000 through ReachGlobal, which was gifted to the EFCA church on Maui to help their community. If you feel led to give beyond that, we recommend giving to the Maui Food Bank. They are an entirely local organization with existing infrastructure and volunteers able to handle current needs.
- Share – If you are on social media and feel led, share articles and videos of the impact on Maui to help create awareness for their needs.
by Guest Author | Oct 7, 2020 | Featured, Headlines |
by Matt Rusten
Reposted with permission from
https://www.madetoflourish.org/
You wouldn’t know it by watching the Nasdaq, but scores of Americans are experiencing deep economic pain. Even as the economy begins to claw back lost jobs, millions of others are losing work with little to no hope of a return.
While politicians, policy makers, and the Fed scheme the best way to revive the economy and support the hardest hit Americans, an often overlooked group of institutions plays a vital role in the economic recovery: churches.
Ever since Max Weber penned The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism in 1905, economists have debated what role religion plays in the economy. It turns out, quite a bit. According to research by Brian Grim and Melissa Grim, published in the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion, faith communities in the United States contribute 1.2 trillion to the economy each year.
The research, which includes religious congregations ($418 billion), religious institutions ($303 billion), and faith-based or faith-related businesses ($437 billion), sheds particular light on how religious faith can play an important societal role in the economic recovery.
Far from being too heavenly minded to be any earthly good, faith communities are concerned to participate in economic growth. You’ve likely heard about a manipulative offshoot of Christianity called the prosperity gospel. This isn’t that. Rather, congregations are motivated by a concern for the wellbeing of all people, especially those who are disproportionately vulnerable in times of economic hardship.
How can faith communities participate in economic vitality and recovery?
First, congregations are embedded in neighborhoods and are economic actors in their local community. According to Grim, congregations spend $84 billion annually paying staff and purchasing various goods and services, the vast majority of which is in the local community.
In the early months of the pandemic, Chris Brooks, senior pastor at Woodside Bible Church outside of Detroit, Michigan, invited his congregation of 10,000 members to participate in “take-out Tuesdays,” an initiative to support local restaurants deeply hurt by the shutdown. As a result, thousands of people, motivated by faith, have intentionally focused their spending for the good of their community.
Churches can direct their dollars not only by generous giving, but also wisely allocated spending. Pastor Brooks understands that generosity and loving one’s neighbor can come through economic exchange.
Churches provide thick relational networks that offer relational support and an economic safety net. The pandemic has forced nearly 45 million people to apply to receive jobless benefits in the past several months. Even with record numbers of people receiving help, a study by One Fair Wage showed that as many as 44% of restaurant workers were denied benefits. If that number is even half right, it represents a massive amount of people falling through the cracks.
Watermark Church in Dallas, with a weekly attendance of 11,000 people, encourages all members to join a small group of 8-12 individuals to care for one another and grow spiritually. When the pandemic hit, Watermark asked all members of small groups to pay attention to economic needs of individuals in their group, and to redirect support normally given to the church to those in need.
With over 360,000 congregations in the United States, these kinds of organic safety nets relieve pressure from local, state, and federal governments, and provide support for people who would otherwise face dire circumstances.
Congregations play a role in helping people connect religious compassion with economic capacity. Research has demonstrated that religious communities impact economic outcomes by forming people to value austerity alongside generosity. In religious terms, wealth is to be built by virtuous exchange, and to be stewarded for the good of others.
The well-known biblical story of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) demonstrates not only heartfelt compassion for a helpless wounded man who had been robbed, but also wisely stewarded economic capacity — the Samaritan chose to pay for all expenses incurred for the man to be healed. The Samaritan had stewarded and built economic capacity to respond compassionately. Faith communities form congregants who view any possessions they have as assets to be stewarded for the good of others.
Finally, churches will play a role in the economic recovery by promoting economic justice for those on the margins. Much has been made of the racial wealth gaps in our country, and for good reason. Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered for his push for civil rights—many know the oft quoted line from his “I Have a Dream” speech:
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
And a beautiful line it is. However, it should not be lost that the message of King’s speech, given at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, put expanding economic opportunities for Black Americans alongside freedom from police brutality and mass incarceration. In that same speech, he wrote,
“Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation… One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity…We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one…We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.”
The Bible is replete with cries for economic justice and expanding economic opportunity. For example, the gleaning laws in the Hebrew scriptures (Lev 19:9-10) called for those with land to give economic opportunity by allowing widows, orphans, and foreigners, to work to collect grain in the fields so they could provide for their families.
What has this looked like in faith communities? A church might see its physical building as an economic asset, offering office space for aspiring entrepreneurs looking for an affordable place to start their business, like Rose City Church in Pasadena, California. A church might use a building project as an opportunity to hire those in need of work in their communities, like Hope Community Church in Woodlawn, Illinois, who hired 50 workers off the streets over the course of two years. It might look like a church who identified an at risk population in those leaving the foster care system and started a cafe business to hire them, give them training and meaningful work, and a chance to grow skills that will serve them for years to come.
And these examples don’t include the scores of people of faith who are commissioned out of their congregations, and who bring a commitment to expand economic opportunity in their scattered work environments.
As we work to put the pieces of the fractured economy back together again, not merely returning to life as normal, but working for a more just and inclusive economy, the words of John Perkins, the civil rights activist, come to mind, “People need two things: Jesus and job.” If Perkins is right, the local church on the corner is not merely a place to find Jesus — it is a key outpost in our collective quest for a renewed economy.
About the Author
Matt Rusten serves as the executive director for Made to Flourish. Rusten received his master of divinity degree from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and has served in churches in North Dakota, the Chicago area, Kansas City, and most recently as pastor of spiritual formation at Blackhawk Church in Madison, Wisconsin. He and his wife, Margi, and their daughter, Olivia, and son, Owen, live in Kansas.
by Bill Gorman | Oct 30, 2019 | Featured, Headlines, Outreach |
One of our great privileges as a church is that we can partner with brothers and sisters in Christ around the world who are also doing the work of multiplying churches, disciples, and leaders. Together we are advancing this mission to multiply across Kansas City and around the world.
Our partner Eleventh Hour Network, focuses on evangelism and church planting among Muslims in northeastern Kenya. Here is just one recent example of how God is powerfully at work.
—
Dear families,
I recently witnessed a testimony that moved my heart so deeply, I had to share it with you.
Two nights ago at the Evangelical Outreach, a possessed young man entered the church where we camped around midnight. He had escaped from his parent’s home, running through thorny bushes in the dark until he collapsed inside our compound. We ran to see what was going on, yet were rightly afraid that the conflict zone surrounding us had erupted.
After the excitement quieted, one of the evangelists recognized the young man as a student from the nearby university who had dropped out a few years ago due to mental illness. The young man’s Muslim parents searched for healing among the well-known witchdoctors, healers, and by attending sacrifices, yet his situation worsened.
Finally, the Holy Spirit got a hold of him to break the chain his parents used to keep him from wandering away from home. It’s then that the Lord led him to run to the church where we were gathering.
We felt the Lord brought him to us at such a time as this for healing. We agreed to pray for him the whole night.
God, very rich in His mercy, set him free from the demonic spirit. For the past two days, this young man has helped set up Jesus film equipment and joined in morning prayer, fasting and sharing his testimony during fellowship.
Yesterday, his parents came to see him in the church. To their amazement, he told them he did not want to go back home. He wanted to stay in the church with Christian families. Remember, he is a Muslim.
Shortly after that, I lead this young man to accept Christ, and the Lord restored his health and state of mind. This afternoon, he went out with the outreach team as a translator.
Indeed, there is nothing too hard for the Lord!
Kindly continue to pray for safety as we travel, and more stories of the transformative power of God.
Every blessing!
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Thank you for your generosity that allows our church family to partner with the work that God is doing around the world. May we learn from these partners in ministry who are faithfully bearing witness to the good news that Jesus is alive, and that death has been defeated!
by Guest Author | Jan 30, 2019 | Featured, Headlines, Outreach |
By Melody McSparran, Leawood Outreach Team
The outreach team at our Leawood Campus has been seeking a deeper understanding of God’s purposes as we commit to serving those in our community, city, and world with the love of Christ Jesus. To help us in this quest, we’ve been studying Christopher Wright’s book The Mission of God’s People.
Dr. Wright describes the church as “a missional community of those who have responded to, and entered, the kingdom of God by repentance and faith in Christ, and who now seek to live as transformed and transforming communities of reconciliation and blessing in the world.”
This beautiful description is captivating and deeply Scriptural. What does it mean to be a community of blessing?
The motif of blessing is woven throughout the pages of Scripture from Genesis 1 forward. God blesses his creation, meaning he bestows his favor, protection and divine empowerment to enable his creatures to fulfill their calling (to be fruitful and multiply) and to his human image bearers (to rule and to reign and to cultivate and keep). Most importantly, the state of blessing is found in a dependent, personal relationship with God…to be one of His children.
We know all too well that this original state of blessedness was shattered when sin entered the world. Curses resulted and relationships were fractured, including our relationship to the earth, with one another, and ultimately with our Creator. However, God’s desire to bless His creation remained and by Genesis 12, we enter into His redemption plan to redeem and restore His world to a state of blessedness.
God approaches Abram (Abraham) and commands him to go to a new land where he will be blessed. “And I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” [emphasis added]
God blesses Abraham, and in turn, Abraham’s family will become a blessing. This is God’s multiplication plan of blessing in this renewal of creation in Abraham. He and his descendants are blessed (find favor with God) and, in turn, as God’s image bearers, they will bless others. Blessing is missional!
God chooses to mediate His blessing to humanity through humanity.
Paul deepens this truth in Galatians 3:8-9:
“And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘All the nations shall be blessed in you.’ So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham the believer.”
How? Verses 13-14:
“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’—in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”
In Christ Jesus, we may experience God’s blessing. In fact, Ephesians 1 declares that God has “blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” (v. 3) Further, we are told that God will one day unite all things in Christ, bringing heaven and earth together (v. 10).
This is where we find ourselves in the story. We’ve entered the kingdom of blessedness, knowing the future of ultimate blessedness when Christ is reigning over all; but knowing, in the meantime, that we remain in the still fallen world, where we proclaim our King and demonstrate His righteousness.
“To be Christian is to be obliged to engage the world, pursuing God’s restorative purposes over all of life,” James Davison Hunter.
At Christ Community, we partner in our city and world with communities of blessing, such as: The Hope Center, who provides healthcare, education and leadership training for youth on our city’s east side; Advice and Aid, which brings emotional, practical, and spiritual support to women facing an unplanned pregnancy in the KC area; the Shyira Diocese, which provides pastoral care and community development in Rwanda; Mission Adelante, which serves immigrants and refugees in Kansas City by meeting their needs and sharing the gospel; and Eleventh Hour Network, which facilitates leadership training, relief and development, and church-planting in Kenya.
Find out ways each campus of Christ Community is seeking to partner with communities of blessing:
Brookside Campus Outreach
Downtown Campus Outreach
Leawood Campus Outreach
Olathe Campus Outreach
Shawnee Campus Outreach
We invite you to pray and consider the call to be a community of blessing in your part of the city as we look forward to the day when “No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him.” (Revelation 22:3)
by Gabe Coyle | Dec 19, 2018 | Headlines, Outreach |
In December of 2016, one Christ Community member took a bold step. She was convicted. And this conviction found its deepest pang not in how broken she saw the world but rather in how clearly she understood her calling.
She believed:
- Urban and underprivileged children should have opportunities to explore and experience music and the arts.
- God is the ultimate Creator, who originally created a good and beautiful world for us to live in. As His image-bearers, we are also called to create beauty in our world.
- Christians are called to seek the common good of our city.
And so Sara Forsythe gathered a team of Christ Community folks in collaboration with Mission Adelante staff to birth a weeklong Arts Camp.
For the past two years, this week-long camp has been a catalyst for discipling children in knowing our creative God and honing their creative gifts as image-bearers. Check out her recap of this last year’s camp here. It’s beautiful to see Christ Community volunteers and financial support leveraged in this common-good initiative.
Not only is the Arts Camp a beautiful picture of our robust partnership with Mission Adelante, but it keeps growing in impact. Now, throughout the year, children are growing in the arts, developing leadership skills, and finding their place to serve others in their community.
Gissell Vasquez is an associate ministry director at Mission Adelante. She leads the Adelante Arts Community year round, and one child who has been impacted through Adelante Arts is Prishmila. Gissell writes:
“When she began attending Arts Community, you could tell that she was one of those charming and shy girls that would not answer a question if not asked directly. Not only did she never miss a class, she was the first to arrive.”
But over time, something happened:
“…As I was helping the students one by one to remember the names of the guitar strings and naming the new chords we were practicing, this girl stepped in and said to me, ‘Do you want me to help you? I can work with my partner while you are doing it with the rest.’ It was a surprise and a joy for me having her offer to help. Immediately I said, ‘Yes, of course, go for it!’ That night and for the rest of the trimester she became not only a student but a helper. She is becoming an artist with a potential to be developed beyond our program and she is turning into a young leader with the most important leadership skill: a servant heart.
I’m blessed to have such an amazing group of students that come every Monday night to enjoy the arts, to share life together, and to learn about Jesus.”
It’s one of our great joys as a church to partner with such excellent organizations like Mission Adelante, influencing our community and world for Jesus Christ. If you aren’t familiar with their work, Mission Adelante longs to see “a growing multicultural community of disciples making disciples, where immigrants and others are thriving and using our gifts together to transform our neighborhood and the world for the glory of Jesus Christ.”
Whether helping immigrants and refugees sharpen their English speaking skills, cultivating the arts with emerging artists, cultivating a space for community support, sharing the gospel, or providing jobs through Adelante Thrift, Kansas City is better for it and Jesus is glorified in it.
Partnership is always more than just a relationship, but never less. And every relationship has to start somewhere. If you are curious about how you too can get engaged with the amazing work at Mission Adelante but you don’t have a ton of time, try this. One good first step would be to coordinate a time for you or a group to serve at Adelante Thrift. If you would like to schedule an opportunity to serve, you can go here.
If you’re looking for more robust engagement, whether in mentoring or teaching in ESL, check out those opportunities here. And if you have artistic gifts and hearing the story of Prishmila inspired you, Gissell is always looking for teachers and mentors in the arts. Reach out for information here.
Think about it. Can you imagine if a whole generation of immigrants and refugees were affirmed in their dignity as image-bearers? Imagine if the most vulnerable in KC were empowered to cultivate their God-given capacity to create where God has them today? It would make for a better city. A better tomorrow for us all.
May we not just be broken by what we see but convicted by who we’re called to be.
All it takes is one big step.
Take it today.
