Active:Water = Active:Faith

Last night at Crossfire, we had an Active:Water night.  We watched the film Zambia's Song, did the disease pathways experience, and brainstormed ideas about how we could help. It was amazing to see the light in their eyes as they began to see that they really could make a difference.

I look at the church and I notice something amazing... I see a whole generation of followers that realize that their faith isn't tied to a building.  Their faith isn't something that rests on a Sunday morning service, a Bible study, or a worship style.  It rests in the fact that their faith propels them to take action locally and globally.  They see that if they are following Jesus, they must take the words of Matthew 25:31-46 and Luke 4:18-21 seriously.  One is very much tied into the idea that serving those on the outside of society is intertwined with our faith and even salvation and the other is Jesus claiming a passage in Isaiah.  Both speak to serving the poor and disadvantaged.  Scripture screams that we must not love with just words, but with action and in truth.  The book of James even says that faith without action is dead! 

I see people serving the homeless in St. Louis, driving to New Orleans to rebuild homes, spending weeks in Haiti at medical clinics, and serving at summer camps for the underprivileged.  And that's just from people at my home church, that doesn't include the many other churches that send thousands of people all over the place!

I believe that when the Church sees the fact that our faith is tied to the "least of these" that we'll see an awakening like nothing ever witnessed.  That when we realize that our brothers and sisters are suffering, it's our call to either ease that suffering or willfully participate in that suffering with them. 

Last night, our students saw that they are called to serve.   They saw that they are called to be different.  They are called to love the least.

Blessings