We who were once far off are now reconciled through Christ

This week I've been ramping up for the Chapter 2 series. I've been living in our mission, thinking about the future and praying about how to make that most clear to everyone. Our Father is so good and several times this week He has given me great reminders of how He is using Community Christian. I've also had a couple of great opportunities to practice what we believe in conversations with disconnected people in our community. God is at work in and through our church to bring people who are totally disconnected from Him back home. The things we are getting to be part of are not normal for church in America. I hope you realize that.

We just sent out another "Church for the rest of us" card. If you didn't get it you can see the photo from the card on the front page of the church web site I have already gotten a negative e-mail about this one and a fairly nasty comment on the blog (I chose not to post it). And yet at the same time God is using us and this series of cards.

A few weeks ago we told you a story here about a terrified lady who came with the card in hand. She was totally freaked out by church but sensed this might be a place she could reconnect. Let me give you an update on what's happened with her. I got an e-mail from one of our Team Lead rs who has been helping in her journey. Let me just copy some of the e-mail and let you see what our Father is up to in this story.

• She called me late yesterday afternoon. She'd gotten her food stamps card and had been able to go grocery shopping. She has a new job at ______ starting there in training on Friday, and she'd gone shopping for the required black pants at Target here in Newnan. She got into a conversation with the dressing room attendant there, found they had a lot in common, and invited that lady to come to "her" church. She was almost giddy and so happy about that as she told me this story. She told me she'd never done anything like that before, had never felt a church was "her's," and had certainly never invited anyone to go to one before. Even though she has attended services only a couple of times with us, she feels loved, and she feels accepted. Her comment was that none of us that she met judged her - that all of us made her feel she was "just as good as you." Wow! Amen to that.
  
  You know something, Ed? Those people who gave you grief about the "scandalous" card or some of the things we do at CCC just don't get it. This is what Christianity is all about. This is why I have come to love CCC and see it as such an integral part of my life. It's not something I do on Sunday morning to impress anybody. I'm working my profile and growing, and living this new life while walking the walk (so to speak) more and more. You are so right - it's all about relationships. Yea God!

I agree. YEA GOD! YEA YOU GUYS for living in this mission. Pray for me as I prepare to talk about all this for the next few weeks. I have never been more convinced that God has us on a good path. I'm praying more and more Christian swill step out of the ghetto and feel the joy of joining God's mission to redeem the world.