U2charist

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Minister: Geoff Peters

I am not sure that I have ever really talked much about my childhood. I am an only child and I was raised by a single mom. We struggled…. A lot. We lived on the edge of poverty during my whole childhood. We ate the food that people donated to local pantries. We spent a couple Thanksgivings at local soup kitchens. My mom tired hard to keep a roof over our heads, but that often meant moving. Moving from city to city or state to state. We moved a lot. In fact, the first time I ever spent two years in a row in the same school was my junior year of High School. While I was in elementary school, I have very vivid memories of taking our food stamps across the street to the gas station – buying a 3-cent stick of gum and then taking the change back home so that we could wash clothes. To this day I still have the little dog stuffed animal that was provided to me as my lone-Christmas gift one year by a local church. Life was hard.

If had not been for the work of the Church (and by that I mean the body of Christ, not a building) I am not sure where I’d be. Out in the Café we have several local groups that do the work of providing for families and people – much like me as I was growing up. These are great organizations and great people that do the work of Christ in this world.

Now….this year, in addition to getting involved locally, through the organizations that are in the café, I’d like to ask each of you to get involved globally. Sometimes that idea of getting involved “Globally” can be pretty daunting. It sounds a bit scary doesn’t it? I mean where do you even begin?

There is a story I know of a little boy who gets a puzzle of a globe for his 6th birthday. And he’s very excited. He finally gets it unwrapped and lays out all the pieces – spreads them all over the floor. And as a stares at it, he realizes that the world seems to be a pretty complex place… and he is not sure where to begin. He calls his Dad over to help him. Both of them spend a while trying to make sense of the puzzle, after a while with almost no success, the Dad leaves to go back to what he was doing before, leaving the little boy to keep trying. After a short 15-minutes later, the little boy calls his dad. “Daddy, come quick.” Dad comes back to the room to discover a perfectly assembled map of the world. Every piece perfectly aligned, every country, state, river and ocean. The Dad is both shocked and impressed. How did you do it he asks? We’ll I looked on the back of the pieces and discovered pieces of a man, and since I know what a man looks like that made it easy. Once I got the man right, the world was easy.

So, there it is. If we all focus on the man… on Christ. If we focus on getting Him right. On being the followers and disciples that He wants us to be…. Then getting the world right, becomes easy – because it is what He wants us, as His followers, to do. The bible tells us in Philippians that we can do ALL things through Him who strengthens us.

I should also say that there is is at least one major hurdle - distraction. The devil is the king of distraction! He can get each of us focused on everthing EXCEPT God's call. As individuals, and as a Church. I get distracted all the time. Our own church has spent the last several months talking about a which campus to settle on, what to sell, blah blah blah. In that time, more than 1 million Africans have dies of preventable, treatable disease.... and we have been focused on a building!

[Inflatable globe is tossed out into congregation] So, getting involved, globally, can seem like a big task. But nothing is too big for God. When Christ left this earth he gave us the task of continuing His work, of being His hands and feet in the world. Like song says, He’s got the Whole World, in His hands” and His hands are our hands.

As an easy first step, I have asked Compassion International to be here today. Now, many of you know Compassion through their Child Sponsorship program (my family has a child that we sponsor, which is an incredible experience and if you are interested in sponsoring a child [3] you can go to the Compassion Table right after the service today) But, Compassion also has other programs. Today, I'd like each of you to consider giving a $10 gift to COmpassion to help their fight to end Malraia. During the next video (from Bono), the ushers will collect a special offering for the fight against Malaria [4]!

VIEW THE BONO VIDEO [5]