our tribe to yours – outside the walls

We recently watched The Grace Card again and it reminded me and confirmed so many things the Lord had been showing me. Don’t you love how He does that? I was reminded that not only was one of the main characters a pastor of a church, but that he was a servant first OUTSIDE the church. He was a little bothered by the fact that the Lord had him working a job that saw as fruitless while his church seemed stagnant. But he was obedient, even if grumbling and of course God knew what He was doing.

We have been ministry pioneers long enough for me to understand his frustrations.

We don’t mind being on the front line, in fact most of the time we thrive on it, but every once in awhile we would kind of like to be part of a nice big safe army. In a perfect world everybody is on the same side, right? But we are not living in a perfect world, we are living in a spiritual desert here in America. An often unexplored, and seriously overgrown with weeds land. I believe we each have our own place in ministry, and ours has always been on the frontline. Taking a spiritual machete and blazing a path. And the true fact of the matter is that most church folks, not all mind you, but most are comfortable, and they want to stay that way. So the Lord takes us outside the walls. When was the last time you shared the love of Jesus to someone at the grocery store? Now for some it is a way of life, but for others they think it is the preachers job. It is a job for all of us, but actually it isn’t a job it is a blessing of an opportunity. But it is also for the preacher. And more often than not even he only preaches at church.

So. We blaze through the tall weeds of busy-ness, and pre Christmas nonsense, (yes sadly most Holiday stuff really does not glorify the Lord at all) and we share the love, the actual, can you feel it, He DIED for you so you don’t have to, LOVE, of Jesus. And folks are changed, and folks are healed, and relationships restored. And it happens outside the church. It happens wherever I am.

This is our calling, and we wouldn’t trade it for anything.

For those of you who have supported us in prayer and filled the gas tank that takes us to the prison and county jail and everywhere else we go, we thank you, you mean more to us than words can say.

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