The Blessing of Need
When I was sixteen my parents moved us from Chicago to Michigan. They said at the time it was for a job opportunity but I know it was to get me away from my boyfriend. It was the greatest gift they ever gave me. We ended up in an inner-city church plant of the Christian Reformed Church. We had a young white assistant pastor fresh out of seminary with an incredible gift for teaching and an African American/Puerto Rican head pastor with a gift of inspiration. It was an incredible experience, a church that drew both white and black, rich and poor, sober and not. It was a church centered around serving those in need in the community and drawing them into the church. We had more ministries than bible studies, and more prayer than planning. I left that church when I went of to college and I have been looking for it ever since.
It was a little over a year ago when I started to run into Mark and Connie at the coffee shop quite frequently, more than I care to admit. Long story short, all of those times spent with them at the coffee shop led my family to the Village Church. I am always amazed at God’s plan for my life unfolding before me, it brings me peace to see how God orchestrates “chance” encounters to bring us to a new place in our journey.
The Village Church is a church about need—one might think it is about the needs of the poor or the sick and while that is true it is not the main thing. What has become very clear to me in the past year is that the true focus of the Village Church and Lincoln Village Ministries is about the need for God! The need for God for the poor and the lost right? No, it is a need for God for ME! When you are faced with children whose mom is on drugs, have been given to a sister who is dying and basically fend for themselves—you learn quickly that you need God to move. When you have a school full of children who aren’t learning and teachers who feel hopeless and you only have 7 tutors signed up to help—you cry out to Jesus. When people you now know personally are living with roaches and holes in their walls which drive up their utility bills into the $400’s—you are helpless but God is able and he IS MOVING.
How exciting and rewarding and frustrating it has been to be in a situation that I can not control. I can’t give enough, ask enough or work hard enough to fix everything there. It makes me uncomfortable. It is in my discomfort that I can see God work first hand. Need is a blessing, it gives us the opportunity to watch God provide. I can tell you this, there is nothing that feeds my soul more than watching a loving God provide for his children’s needs—mine and theirs.