Several days ago, Nate and I were reflecting that a year ago this past week we submitted our application to our agency to start the adoption process and were approved the day before Thanksgiving. As we were reflecting on that along with what Nate chose to speak on last Sunday at our church, the video I'd like to share today, just seemed to fit together. I'll get to the video in a moment, but wanted to share a little about Nate's sermon last Sunday, that in some ways ties into today's video clip.
The sermon topic last Sunday was taken from the book of Nehemiah and illustrated how when Nehemiah took on the project of rebuilding the wall, it took many individuals linking arms together for a joint purpose to get the job done. Though one could certainly take a number of great truths from the story of Nehemiah (vision, prayer, joining together as the body of Christ to accomplish a common purpose to name a few) Nate's message focused on the importance of the body of Christ, when it comes to accomplishing ministry locally, regionally, and globally as a church. Oftentimes we see so many large, daunting needs in our local communities, in the lives of families within our churches, and even large scale needs around the world that we may just choose to buy into the belief "I can't really make a difference as the need is so great".
The truth is- alone you may only be able to change one life, but by linking arms together with others in the church, together we accomplish greater things and can have larger-scale impact than through what we may be able to do as an individual. As we've been studying through this book of the Bible as a church, our church body has grasped the importance of this truth and in the past several weeks, we were able to see a large number of needy families in our community adopted for Thanksgiving this week, by providing a Thanksgiving meal to them on Thursday. Our church also partnered with a ministry to help provide disaster relief items for those affected by Hurricane Sandy in the Northeast. Together, more lives were impacted than if we had tried to do it alone.
This is part of the calling of the church and it's always incredible to see the church becoming what it was meant to be- a place of restoration, healing and hope for those who are hurting; yet, reaching out to meet the needs of others around us.
I'd like to share the incredible video below by Dr. Karyn Purvis who highlights this very idea of how the church can make a profound impact as the body of Christ- TOGETHER. She highlights how the church and those in it aren't supposed to be perfect and people's lives will oftentimes get messy. Her comment towards the end of the clip from her meeting with Congressional leaders is quite impactful-
"This problem is too big for our government, we need the church".
I can speak both on a personal level as well as on a professional level through my work on how much I highly recommend Karyn's resources for those who have children from foster backgrounds, adoptive backgrounds, or children who have come from "hard places"- a term she has coined. Her ministry and years of expertise in working with children who come from these backgrounds are invaluable. If you do any work with children or are a family looking into foster care or adoption and aren't familiar with her resources, I highly recommend them to you. I would also highly encourage you to consider attending one of her conferences if you are able. You will gain valuable resources and learn so much that will help you better work and minister to children from different backgrounds.
Please click the link below to watch this powerful video.
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