On Sunday I spoke at Pasadena Covenant Church, our sister church that has partnered with us in this adventure of church planting here in South Central. I never cease to be amazed by the generosity of this congregation. Generosity of friendship, of time, of listening and praying and celebrating with us. It is a true generosity of spirit and I truly cannot imagine the last three years without their steadfast companionship.
This is a church that, as they envisioned their life together three years ago, felt led to commit significant resources, time and energy to the birth of a new ministry in a totally unrelated community, among people having nothing to do with their congregation. There were a lot of other options for how they could steward their resources, many of which would have directly benefited their members. But they chose to release and not to store; to give freely and not to hoard. In other words, they chose, in a very dramatic way, to “consider others better than themselves” (Philippians 2).
I just read on my denominational website the story of another Covenant church up in the Northwest whose capital campaign for facility improvements included $100,000 for roofs to be put on schools in the Congo.
It is easy to be cynical about “the institution” of the church. My generation is especially good at this. We need to hear stories like these.