around the world...
I've been seeing more and more international hits on this blog... How does that happen?
Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Poland, Singapore, Australia, places in Africa... the list goes on.
How does that happen?
Is there anything helpful here? :)
I better get to some better blogging!
I received this email recently... I have no idea how to respond. I put it here simply as an example of some of the mail I get, and to say... I'm humbled and helpless in the face of some of it. I feel powerless to help, I feel cynical and suspicious at times, I feel like doing whatever I can. I am truly ambivalant.
How do we respond to requests for help from afar? And don't just say "Help them" or "Don't help them"... This needs more fleshing out. We live in an internet age where the needs of the entire world have the potential to wash over us everytime we turn on the computer or the TV. How does one respond to that? Is there a personal firewall that needs to be maintained?
Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Poland, Singapore, Australia, places in Africa... the list goes on.
How does that happen?
Is there anything helpful here? :)
I better get to some better blogging!
I received this email recently... I have no idea how to respond. I put it here simply as an example of some of the mail I get, and to say... I'm humbled and helpless in the face of some of it. I feel powerless to help, I feel cynical and suspicious at times, I feel like doing whatever I can. I am truly ambivalant.
Dear Rev. Bob and Amy Hyatt,
Holy Greetings from Philippines!
When God send you here. You are very much welcome to
minister in our missions and church here. We have been
starting a church in Cagayan de Oro City. We are going
to plant churches in the houses of the indigent people
in the slums and villages, where inhabitants’
especially children are dying because of enormous
poverty. We care for 1,134 unfortunate children, aged
from 1 to 10 years old, in feeding outreaches, by
God's miraculous provision. Prior to nourishing them
with sizzling, nutritious food, we first gave them
Bible stories, lessons, and verses to memorize. We
minister God's Word to both the children and their
parents. The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ makes
them glad. People ruined by the works of the devil
have joy, as we lead them to the Lordship of Christ.
Please reckon us in your ministries. Our hearts goes
to proclaim the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ,
training the converts and plant churches to the region
and beyond. Evangelistic efforts is our main trust
that we can win more lost to be found in Jesus Christ.
We reach out for the lost, feed the hungry, cloth the
naked, minister to the sick, teach, preach and live by
the Gospel of our Lord. We have our prison ministry
where hundreds of inmates are saved. The power of the
Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ changes lives and now
they attend bible study inside their cell.
Therefore, we hope that you will not neglect our
humble desire for the expansion of God’s kingdom.
Please broaden your ministry here in Philippines!
Please keep in touch how I can help you.
May the Lord God Bless You More Abundantly.
Yours in Christ,
Jesus A. Carso, Jr.
How do we respond to requests for help from afar? And don't just say "Help them" or "Don't help them"... This needs more fleshing out. We live in an internet age where the needs of the entire world have the potential to wash over us everytime we turn on the computer or the TV. How does one respond to that? Is there a personal firewall that needs to be maintained?
3 Comments:
Holy cow, Bob, that is a tough one.
I tend to lean towards relationship when it comes to global work. But, then again, I've never received a message like that.
"Please keep in touch how I can help you."
How humbling that has to be to see someone who doesn't have much want to be of service to you as well. Amazing.
To meet the needs of a hurting world, the Church must respond with compassion and stop being too busy to care. That is the wake-up call to the christian believers, that compassion forces us to relate to people and their problems.
Compassion may well be the entrance to culture,'' we should tell both believers and different denomination. "It involves a depth of passion, which forces us to act. It makes us get our hands dirty.
It doesn't need consent to our creeds before it acts, it doesn't trade orthodoxy for attention and it is prepared to allow people to benefit without believing first," "But it drives us to teach, feed, and heal.
A church's Sunday notices often revealed if it is motivated by compassion or if it is too bogged down in its own internal affairs.
I stressed that when God showed up in the Bible it was always in response to a perceived need and Christians should do likewise. It's the pathway to effective witness. You have to give people what they know they need in order to give them what they don't know they need. I preached from Matthew 20:29-34 when Jesus responded to the emphatic cries of two blind men as he left Jericho . Jesus asked them "What do you want me to do for you?" revealing that he never made assumptions about people but gave them the opportunity to express their needs. His ministry was typified by questions as much as by anything else.
When the blind men told him they wanted their sight Jesus responded despite the fact that it cut into his programmed and delayed his journey to Jerusalem and the Cross.
"There is a pragmatism about God's involvement with the world we would do well to take seriously in our 21st century witness. Compassion makes us put aside our own schedule to reach out and touch people's lives.
Jesus only ever cried twice in the Bible but it was never associated with compassion. Compassion doesn't make us cry, it makes us act!
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