We are now working with housing agencies given the task of finding homes for those still left in shelters after Katrina blew through Louisiana and Mississippi. One such agency must find homes for 600 families. We are hoping to take them all. With hurricane Rita on her way to Texas and Louisiana shortly, the number of displaced families will grow tremendously literally overnight.
We need your help. Please tell pastors and other church and Christian organization leaders about FindShelter.org. Urge them to go there and click on the sponsor link. Once they do so they will be contacted quickly by a representative of FindShelter.org and matched with a family in need of virtually everything. Sponsoring churches or groups are asked to supply ALL physical, mental and spiritual nurturing to their family for at least one year: clothe, feed, house, employ, counsel, medicate, pray etc. They need everything an they need it for a long time.
More families were placed this morning and we have men in shelters across the ravaged areas finding more families who need total assistance. We lack more churches and Christian organizations willing to adopt the growing number of homeless in the South. Prayerfully consider your part in all this. It’s NOT enough to pray when we could be the answer to someone’s prayer.
-Shaun
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We made it home. Thanks for the prayers.
I still have family in the path of Rita. Some of them have been leaving Houston for 24 hours now and have gone less than 100 miles. No food. No place to stop for gas and getting only slightly closer to safety. Continue praying for those on the packed highways and back roads of Texas and for those who didn’t even bother trying to get out.
I’m in Texas. This won’t be the most literate post. We’re in a hurry. I’m posting from Jake Smith’s laptop in a hotel in Tyler, Texas. We played here last night and were supposed to play tonight in Waco. Waco cancelled.
When we flew into Houston yesterday it took us 7.5 hours to get to Tyler (ususally 3 hours drive). We were stuck in a swarm of loaded down cars evacuating South Texas. With Waco cancelled we’re driving instead of flying to Nashville. It’s twelve hours with little gas left in Texas. Pray we make it.
Pray also for Jake and his band. They’re headed back to Louisiana and then getting out with wives, possessions and what not. Crazy.
I’ll let you know how it all turns out. Peace.
SG
Tonight at IKON Brian taught brilliantly on three chapters of Genesis but the highlight of the night was straight from the New Testament. When we love the least - scripture tells us - we love Jesus. Somehow the lowest and ignored become living sacraments, connections between man and Messiah. Somehow the essence of Christ spills through them to us and somehow our love flows through them to God. They become, essentially, conduits for two-way affection between Creator and created. Amazing. If we get it.
And this is the central message, in everything I sing and speak about, of my career thus far. We exist not only to know God but to make Him known by loving people. In doing so we worship and commune with God. I often wonder if we get it, if I get it. I’ve heard this so many times it can become theological furniture pushed against the walls of my heart while lesser theories and passions take up more space in the center of the room. I play shows where I sell more t-shirts than kids are sponsored through Compassion International. I meet ministers who spend tens of thousands on a new set of jumbotrons but just cut their mission budget, who have four people on staff to “lead worship” while no dedicated staff member exists to lead worshipers from singing into service. And I wonder, “Will we ever get it?”
Then a hurricane hits and churches mobilize to house and clothe and feed strangers. Mayors call pastors and beg them for benevolence mighty Caesar cannot provide. The Church awakens from it’s slumber, stops it’s singing, and starts serving. Lives are sustained. Prayers are answered. God grows hands and feet. And Jesus is loved well.
Or tonight happens. A smaller group than normal shows up at IKON to study an Old Testament passage. And the night closes with a simple announcement about special needs children in our church being without teachers on Sundays. The small gathering is asked to sign up if they could volunteer once a month to play with these kids while their parents get a break and the chance to attend a church service - something many of them rarely get to do.
The cynic I am, I figure we might get one volunteer. These are young professionals, newlyweds, college students. Busy people. They don’t have time for this kind of commitment. And I’ve been going to this church long enough, begging for volunteers to watch healthy kids in the preschool department long enough, to know people here would rather sing than serve. But I was surprised. These folks at IKON are different somehow. They get it. Not all of them, but enough. There was an outpouring of mercy on these kids in need. Seven people immediately signed up to serve. And there were more who needed to leave but wanted to know if they could sign up later this week.
This shouldn’t surprise me. But it does. And not just because it’s rare in the church’s I visit every week. But because it’s often rare in me. When we love the least we love Jesus. I get it.
