From Helping the Homeless:

Each person has such immense value to Him that He gave his life in the ultimate sense for each and every one of us. That is the value He tells us to place on every person in the world. It may be difficult to comprehend, but the longer we live the more we are able to see that we live in a world where we are all affected by and responsible for each other’s welfare.

Bam. A sucker punch to the gut. Discuss.

My friend, a Lutheran pastor, recently blogged about Luke 15 and how those celebrations compare with "celebrations" in the church today. Two snippets from Luke 15 follow below, or you can read the entire passage here:

7 Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

10 Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.

What Dion tackles is the difference between those heavenly celebrations listed above and those we have when our church membership rosters grow. His main argument:

Notice that Luke 15 does NOT say that the angels in heaven throw a party when a disgruntled catholic or baptist from the church down the street transfers to our church. Nor does it say that the angels in heaven wait to rejoice until the "sinner" who repents becomes a contributing part of the organization...pulling his/her own weight! It certainly doesn't even entertain the notion that the angels might celebrate when a church quits looking for valuable "lost" people altogether so that it can give more attention to those who are lucky enough to be found!

What a fair and accurate account of how 21st century American churchgoers tend to live! We tend to shut ourselves in our Fortresses and celebrate those who "sneak out the back door of one church and in the front door of another." It seems we do a pretty crappy job of living the Nicene Creed and ignore Missional Living altogether.

On that note, who is interested in doing some labor of love ministry in the Detroit area? There are a lot of people in this city who could use some help with their homes, yards, cars, etc.

Back in January, a group from our church traveled to the Gulf Coast to participate in some mission-based home/life repairs for many that are still suffering the aftermath of the 2005 hurricanes. As a result, the missionaries have been inspired to bring back the spirit of Christian service to our area, which brought together a group from our parish pursuing this plan this afternoon.

I am very excited about the idea of helping those in need of home work. Yes, there are the Extreme Makeover's out there, but the reality is that there are homeowners barely hanging onto their properties who can't take care of it, there are the physically disabled, the injured military veterans, the elderly, the widowed, the single parents and so many others. With our group, the bottom line is promoting and living Christian service and charity under the banner of the one holy catholic and apostolic church.

Short term, we need bodies, contacts (at agencies to find people we can help), tools, materials, etc. Wanna help? Send me a message through the contact page and let me know.