We kicked off our first-ever Missions Month at GCR Church Wednesday night with what we called “CrocktoberFest.” It was an all-church crockpot potluck and it was fabulous on all fronts. We packed right at 200 of us in the Family Center Gym and there must have been almost a hundred crockpots on the four serving lines. The crockpots contained the usual–soups, pasta dishes, beans, potatoes, lasagna, taco meat, and all kinds of seasoned chicken and pork. But lots of folks got creative, too. There were crockpots with Chick-fil-A nuggets and sauces, Oreo cookies, and — as requested from the Sunday morning pulpit at least twice — ice cream!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After we shared that amazing dinner together, we gathered all our kids–where are all these kids at GCR coming from?!?– and spent about 15-minutes talking about our congregation’s foreign missions works. We introduced our church family to the missionaries and the organizations that represent our six largest global partnerships, and then we spent a few minutes at each table reading God’s Word and praying for these missionaries by name and place.

We’re spending the entire month of October showcasing our global missions partners because we want our church to see the pictures, to meet the missionaries, the hear the stories. We want our people to know it, to experience it, to own it.

In a lot of churches, “Missions” is just a special Sunday for a special offering for something that other people are doing a long way from here. There’s no engagement. So, the church budget determines, or limits, the mission of God instead of God’s mission setting the budget.

Or, “Missions” is just something the missions committee oversees–a half-dozen people managing the missions budget and staying in touch with the missionaries. And there’s no relationship with the church body. It’s not a partnership as much as it’s a holy banking service for a good cause.

We want all of GCR to get to know our missionaries and our partnerships. We want them to meet the people, to hear their stories, to be inspired by their courage and commitment, to learn to really love these people and organizations.

We engage in partnerships with these people and groups because we can do so much more together than we can as individuals. We’re partners. This kind of partnership brings us great joy when we do our part. And our part in these partnerships is to give our money, to encourage, and to pray.

It’s Missions Month at GCR. I know it’s going to become my favorite time of the year.

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Carrie-Anne, Whitney, and I took in the Zack Williams concert at the Ector County Coliseum in Odessa last night. C-A bought the tickets, so they were on the floor, tenth row, dead center. Outstanding seats and a pretty good show. Zack didn’t seem to have as much energy as he typically brings. He didn’t sing as many of his “hits” and played way too many from his brand new album that just came out like three weeks ago. And he only played 70-minutes. A little bit of a disappointment for Carrie-Anne.

I was most impressed with the band that performed right before Zack, a high-energy, hard-rocking group called We The Kingdom. Evidently, they’ve been around a while–C-A knew many of their songs. Either way, they way outperformed the headliner. It reminded of Van Halen touring to promote their debut album in 1978, opening for Black Sabbath, and famously blowing them away every night.

Peace,

Allan