Sarah and I officially launched our efforts into the world of fund raising with an event at our home base - Crossroads Community Church - on Sunday, September 19th. We were thrilled to see over 70 people come out for a night devoted to hearing (and seeing) where God was sending us.
We have wrestled with this aspect of the journey since we first realized that God was opening doors for us to go into the overseas mission field. Our initial anxieties were about having to "beg people" to support us as if it was our job to try and "sell ourselves" to people so that they might feel "led" to help us out. Then God sent us a little book by one of my favorites, Henri Nouwen, called, "The Spirituality of Fund Raising". God used this short little book to rescue our thinking (okay, I'll admit, it was mostly my thinking). I began to realize that what we were doing was simply presenting people with the invitation to ask the Lord if they should invest their resources in His work among the people of Malawi, Africa - NOT asking people to "buy into" our future endeavors. What a shift in focus! We are not the initiators of this work - God is. We are not the objects either - the Malawian people are. We are not carried along in the hands of however many people decide to support us - we are carried along in the very hands of God Himself. People will decide what part they should play by asking Him - not because of me asking them. What a RELIEF!
St. Augustine once prayed, "O Lord give me chastity, but not yet." He was really saying, "Lord, I want this good thing in my life - but I want it on my own terms." I guess my own odd prayer has been something akin to: "Lord, teach me to trust You - but don't put me in places of uncertainty." My associate pastor came to me a week ago with a list of new possibilities for our church sign out front. I looked over the list and selfishly chose a sign for myself (and anyone it might bless driving by). It simply says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart."
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