Last night, after the first concert of the Gloria! Christmas Tour, a lady walked up to me in the lobby of the church and asked how Compassion decides which kids will be in the program.
I told her everything I knew about the registration process, how Compassion works with the poorest of the poor, how the need of every child is assessed, etc.
“The reason I’m asking,” she said...and then, through some tears, she told me an incredible story.
She went on a mission trip with some people from her church - a couple years ago I think it was - to Guatemala. One day she spotted a little girl there whose picture she just had to take. She was squatting down all by herself, in obvious need, no smile.
She hadn’t thought about that girl much since her trip, until she walked into the lobby of the church last night. Beside a massive banner of Travis‘ head was a long table full of sponsorship packets from Compassion International. And there in all those faces was the girl she and her camera had been drawn to back in Guatemala.
When she stopped talking and crying I explained to her just how incredible her story really was. At any given time, about 100,000 of the more than one million children Compassion cares for do not yet have sponsors. Their care continues, underwritten mostly by an unsponsored children’s fund, while a packet with their face on it sits on table after table at concert after concert waiting for the right sponsor to come along and pay for their care and write them letters.
She didn’t plan on sponsoring a child last night. In fact, she’d heard about Compassion before and just wasn’t ever sure the kids were real. But last night she knew they were. She couldn’t afford $32 a month so a friend of hers sponsored the little girl and the two of them will write letters to her together.
Coincidence or a very personal God?
By the way, 50 other people became sponsors last night. That’s a pretty good start to the tour. Thanks to everyone in Thompson Station, Tennessee (and friends from Birmingham) who showed up last night. Next stop, Morristown.
Welcome to the first night of the Gloria! Christmas Tour with me, Cindy Morgan and Travis Cottrell. Show starts at 7PM CST. Enjoy and please help us improve by letting us know what you think in the chat window or by sending us some mail.
To catch this tour in a city near you this month, visit the Tour Page.
Thanks for watching.
Tonight’s the first night of the Gloria! Christmas Tour, which will be broadcast live right here tonight, and in better quality at mogulus.com/sgtv. Curtain goes up at 7PM CST.
Brian brought me on this tour to speak about Compassion and to do three very short “teachings” during the show. He gave me three themes - waiting, incarnation, worship - and a time limit of two minutes to talk about each.
I’ve learned a lot while preparing, a lot more than I can possibly fit in two minutes. For instance, I learned that the last words of the Old Testament were written by Malachi in 397 BC. In his letter, Malachi warned of hard times ahead for the Jews and then asks them to do two things: remember the Law God gave you through Moses, and believe, no matter how bad things get, God will send help again.
Remember God has done great things and He’s not through doing.
And then the prophet Malachi put down his pen. And for the next 400 years the Jews changed hands, ruled by empire after empire. Syrians, Persians, Greeks, Egyptians and Romans. Those 400 years are sometimes called the “dark period” in Jewish history, the darkest. Why? The Jews had been oppressed before, they’d been slaves, they’d been captured and brutalized. They were no strangers to foreign rule and injustice. Why were these 400 years the darkest?
Because God was silent.
After Malachi spoke, God was silent. For four hundred years there were no signs. No miracles. No prophets. Nothing.
The Psalmist David had predicted this dark period when he wrote: We are given no miraculous signs; no prophets are left, and none of us knows how long this will be (Psalm 74:9)
Before healing there was sickness. Before songs of joy there were cries of sorrow. Before peace on earth, wars were waged. Before justice there was oppression. Before the Light of the World dawned there was darkness. Before God with us there was silence. Before the One there was waiting.
And remembering: God has done great things and He’s not through doing. Remember.
I caught up on my blog reading this morning. Looky what I found.
Pastors: Tony Morgan says church marketing is not the answer - with a one two punch.
Skeptics: DJ Unplugged is in the Philippines visiting a boy named Frans. Seeing is believing.
Learners: Get an education like none other for free! And work in New York City.
No one in particular: This made me blush. And then I bought some chaps.
Curious: How many blogs are you following? Find anything worth passing on? Link to it in the comments.
It’s not necessarily a good thing to have grown up immersed in Christianity. In fact, I’d liken daily exposure to Christianity to a vaccine. I’m inoculated from awe and insight.
For instance, Christmas. I know the story. Mary and Joseph have to travel to Joseph’s hometown, Bethlehem, to be counted by the government census takers. While there, Mary gives birth to Jesus, God in the flesh. There are angels and shepherds and…
Every year, for going on 34 years now, it’s the same story. I know it’s supposed to be miraculous but, honestly, it doesn’t seem that way anymore. I’m listening to the story through a thick layer of repetition that shields my mind from being penetrated and my heart from being moved. The story just doesn’t punch me in the gut like I know it would if I were hearing it for the first time, or if I were a shepherd under that star two thousand years ago.
This year, I’m attempting to hear the story in a new way. I’m reading Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth in different translations and commentaries all month. Really reading it. In new words. The repetition alone is helping reveal details I’ve never noticed before and that is making the story more meaningful to me.
Luke 2:21-24 On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he had been conceived. When the time of their purification according to the Law of Moses had been completed, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord”, and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: “a pair of doves or two young pigeons.”
I’m learning for the first time about two very meaningful things going on in this small section I’ve never noticed before. First, Jesus is Mary’s first son, so there had to be a consecration ceremony called “pidyon-haben.” It literally means “redemption of the first son.” During this ceremony the son is handed over to the Temple officials and dedicated to the service of God. In other words, he becomes a priest, a hired worker in the Temple, a slave to God. Then, immediately, the son, is “redeemed” or randsomed back from the Temple for the price of five shekels (Numbers 18:16). An exchange is made. For five shekels the parents get their son back and a Levite (a descendent of Levi) serves in the child’s place - a substitute priest.
How’s that for foreshadowing?
The second thing I’ve never noticed happening in this passage is the purification of Mary. A Jewish mother was considered ceremonially unclean for forty days after giving birth - so she was unable to worship in the Temple and was cut off from the rest of the community. After forty days she could sacrifice a year-old lamb as a burnt offering, and a dove or a pigeon as a sin offering, so that she could rejoin her community. But what if she couldn’t afford a lamb?
The “Law of the Lord” says…
If she cannot afford a lamb, she is to bring two doves or two young pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering. In this way the priest will make atonement for her, and she will be clean. (Leviticus 12:8)
Suddenly the seemingly innocuous detail about Mary’s sacrifice is meaningful. Now I get it. Mary couldn’t afford a lamb. And why is that important? One smart guy
says that Jesus came to earth partly to “provide a tangible manifestation of God’s attitude toward poverty and injustice.” How better to start showing the world how much the poor matter to God than for God to be born into poverty?
