Walk This Way!

I love a good conversation. The kind that leaves you challenged, energized and a little uncomfortable because you’ve been stretched. This Sunday, my dear friend Bob Deppen and I will launch into a five week conversation with 40 people from Grace as we begin a new Just Walk Across The Room class. The JWATR experience is amazing in it’s simplicity. I’ve been through so many outreach training experiences that frame sharing your faith as this complex---almost impossible information dump. Pointing another life toward God rarely involves one stand alone conversation. More often, it’s believers wholeheartedly stepping into a person’s life and slowing pointing them to the God who loves them. This happens through relationships!

You’re welcome to join us! Room A-1 @ 11:00am. The class lasts all of February.

Thanksgiving 2008

The people of Grace are an incredibly generous bunch. We are in the midst of our yearly Thanksgiving outreach. Thank you for serving our community by purchasing a complete Thanksgiving meal(s) for families who are struggling under the weight of poverty or extreme health issues. I’m often asked this question. “Who exactly receives the meals?” We work in partnership with several local relief and medical organizations such as GECAC, Family Services, Mother-To-Mother, Big Brother-Big Sister, Visiting Nurses Association, Regional Cancer Center, Mercy Center, local hospice chapters…etc. They represent people who are seriously trying to better their lives yet remain far below the poverty line. They are learning how to budget, be better parents, how to manage as a single mom or dad. On the medical side, we support families that have seriously ill members. Dad or mom has cancer or other life threatening diseases.

We have the privilege of injecting some hope into these homes on a holiday that centers around a very special meal. When a family can’t afford the meal or is too sick to consider putting it together…Thanksgiving can be very painful.

If you haven’t made a donation yet and still want to participate, simply click on the Thanksgiving Outreach section on the whoisgrace.com homepage.

Thanks you Grace Church for being Christ to our community!

Horrible News From Haiti!

I’ve been on the phone this morning with various ministries that serve on the front line in Haiti. Grace Church has been sending teams to Haiti for the past 10 years to help push back the darkness and poverty of the poorest nation in our hemisphere. Next week we begin the process of assembling the team for the 2009 trip.

Haiti has been savaged by three successive hurricanes in a matter of just a few weeks. The news I received this morning broke my heart. 1200 people have drowned. That number is expected to expand 10/20 times once relief workers are actually able to get into the area. The major roads have completely washed away. 1 million people are displaced. One half of Haiti lives on one dollar a day. They now need at least three. They won’t make it without a miracle. People have been sitting on rooftops for over three weeks because the mud is waste deep. That means most of them are dead. People are eating dirt to stay alive. The UN is trying to get cooked rice into the region because they can’t store anything bagged due to standing water. Entire church congregations have drowned. No fuel, food or medicine has made it through from the southern ports to the masses in the north.

Please pray for these wonderful people who struggle so deeply. The cry in the streets is …“Haiti is dead!” I’ll have more news as I receive it. Pray for our missionaries working desperately to make a difference. Pray for their safety as increased violence is erupting.

thank you...

Thanks for all the emails in regards to this past weekends sermon. Greatly appreciated! 500 people walked away with one of those lists of the New Testament “One Another’s.” Life will dramatically change for those families who begin living out these simple principles. If you didn’t get a chance to grab one….they will be available again this weekend at the Info Center in the front lobby.

Other things may change us, but we start and end with the family.

~Anthony Brandt

The Awakening Series

This weekend, we will conclude one of the most inspiring and challenging sermon series we may have ever offered at Grace Church. We asked God to open our eyes to the ongoing potential of being a blessing to everyone we come in contact with. We also challenged ourselves to bless some very specific groups of people. Our neighbors, our enemies and our families. It’s one thing to be a blessing to a needy person you run into downtown….it quite another to purposely and authentically bless someone who opposes or dislikes you. May God give us the grace and intentionality to carry the blessing to others all the days of our lives. You can listen to the entire series via our website.

I would like to recommend a book for those who want to better understand the power of being a blessing to your family. Dr. John Trent and Gary Smalley
co-wrote: The Blessing. Great insight!