GOD CAN'T SLEEP

5,000 & COUNTING

I keep trying to tell people that their one life matters. You matter. How you live, what you do matters. If you’re not convinced, let me tell you about Jennifer.

Jennifer Preyss (pronounced Price) is a young, energetic reporter for the Victoria Advocate; Texas’ oldest newspaper. Last year Jennifer traveled to Malawi, Africa and spent several weeks serving with Children of the Nations (COTN), loving and caring for orphans.

In October -- still bothered by the extreme poverty, the lack of simple basic needs like shoes -- Jennifer read about The Grove’s Barefoot Sunday. She was captivated, compelled, and certain God wanted her to hold a Barefoot Sunday in Victoria, Texas and send the shoes to children in Malawi.

Jennifer says she “stalked” me on Facebook until I answered. Her urgent plea read something like, “Palmer, I want to hold a Barefoot Sunday for the entire city of Victoria! Can you help me?”

It sounded audacious. I told her I would do my best. But her plans seemed lofty, and South Texas was a long way from Chandler, Arizona. I was a skeptic.

Jennifer kept working. Her passion was infectious. Four more reporters joined her cause. A date was set, February 27th. A goal was established, 1,000 pairs of shoes.

On Victoria’s Barefoot Sunday I preached three services at The Grove, then hurried to the airport with Dan Angermiller. Dan returned from Malawi with a similar passion to Jennifer’s, and founded Lightfeet Project; his efforts to collect shoes for Africa and Haiti.

We landed in Houston and our good driver Erica kept her foot to the floor trying to get us to Victoria by 6:30. When Dan and I walked through the doors of Renegade, the appropriate name of the church hosting the event, Pastor Bard met us with a giant Texas smile, handed me a wireless mic and said, “Ok Palmer, you’re up, this is the bands last song.”

That night I saw how Jennifer had inspired an entire city. She and her team had rallied participation from 20 churches, 4 schools, 2 colleges, and a Synagogue.

An entire class of second graders insisted on going barefoot the whole day, when they took off their shoes to send to Africa. A high school junior, Keaton Warren, said, “What good are shoes without socks?” So he started his own sock drive. More than 2,000 pairs of socks came in on Barefoot Sunday. And I loved this, when shoes piled up all over the city, the Advocate newspaper sent their truck out to do shoe pick-ups -- after their newspaper deliveries.

When I spoke that night I had the privilege of applauding the efforts of everyone in Victoria. I told them about the places their shoes would go, like Liberia, Malawi, and Haiti. I told them how valuable one pair of shoes is to an African orphan. I told them how a pair of shoes moves a barefoot high school student in Africa from going to school full of shame, to walking to school full of dignity.

After the closing Barefoot Sunday event, as we surveyed the mountain of shoes, Jennifer gave us a count… “We’ve blown past our goal, Palmer, you’re looking at 4,700 pairs of shoes!”

Do you see why I say one life, like Jennifer’s, really can make a difference?

The next morning the shoe count jumped past 5,000… and counting.

Sanctus Real :: Feed-blog

Sanctus Real :: Feed-blog

David C Cook Announces Winner of the True Religion Missions Trip Scholarship

Megan Boudreaux from New Orleans, LA, has been selected as the winner of the True Religion Missions Trip Scholarship. Palmer Chinchen, author of True Religion, and David C Cook, publisher of True Religion, sponsored the $1000 scholarship that was awarded to Megan on November 8, 2010. The award will be applied to a mission trip Megan will be taking to Haiti with Hope for Haiti on December 5-10, 2010.

Megan, a native of Lafayette, LA, believes God placed so much compassion and love in her heart at the age of seven when her father passed away. Megan is a graduate of Tulane University and has been on many mission trips including Honduras, Uganda, Ukraine, Mexico, and Haiti. Megan has worked in Haiti and planned medical mission trips for a hospital in Baton Rouge. Megan’s first impression of Haiti was, “It was unlike ANYTHING I had ever seen before. I knew I had been blessed with a burden for orphans and children.” After spending time in Haiti and having the privilege of loving these children and seeing Jesus in these orphans’ beautiful eyes, Megan knew that Haiti is where God wants her to be. As Megan says, “I’ve been forever changed by the children of Haiti.”

You can learn more about Megan and her work in Haiti on her blog at http://blessedwithaburden.wordpress.com.

About True Religion by Palmer Chinchen: True Religion: Taking Pieces of Heaven to Places of Hell on Earth examines the idea of living a life sacrificially poured out for Christ. Chinchen believes that those who are willing to give their lives away to change the world will find their own lives changed forever through that process. He challenges believers to love the Lord with all their mind and soul, with all their strength and heart, and as this love is poured into the work of Christ, believers will experience God moving them in a unique direction that will carry them into new and exciting areas of service. For more information, visit: www.truereligion.com.

Headquartered in Colorado Springs, Co, with offices in Elgin, Illinois, Paris, Ontario, Canada, and Eastbourne, UK, David C Cook resources are published in over 150 languages, distributed in more than 80 countries, and sold worldwide. For more information, visit www.davidccook.com.

Audra Jennings
Senior Media Specialist
The B&B Media Group

AMERICAN JESUS

When I was in college a friend named Bob, at Cal Baptist Univ., flew to Liberia for the summer. He was 6’6”, a Rock Stark basketball player, had hair down to his shoulders, and a beard… the Liberians immediately dubbed him American Jesus. Everywhere Bob traveled that summer playing basketball the crowd chanted the same thing, American Jesus.

I was flying back from Virginia last week, reading Michael Frost’s Untamed, when this line jumped off the page, “If Jesus came back to earth and walked into an American church… I think he would be pretty surprised.”

The statement has made me think much about the American church and the things we value. Strangely, we are about a lot of things that Jesus was never about.

Then this somewhat amusing thought hit me… what would Jesus be like if he really was like many American Christians?

American Jesus has a lot of nice things:
And that’s pretty true. American Jesus wouldn’t mind materialism. He likes a good cause but at the same time he makes sure his garage and back yard and side yard and closets have nice things, a lot of nice things. That’s how Jesus would live if he really was an American, but he does give 2%.

American Jesus is mildly devoted to his cause:
Don’t get me wrong, American Jesus likes God. He likes the church. He likes sunny Sunday mornings and lunch out after church with his family. It’s all a very pleasant experience. And the hope is, he can put in his time on Sunday and have the rest of the week to pursue what he’s really passionate about… a promotion at work, respect in the community, a new car, golf, shopping, and vacations in California.

American Jesus likes I-Mag:
If your church in America is serious about God, you better order an I-Mag projector. Because right now every church that’s worth beans has I-Mag. I-Mag is short for “Image Magnification.” With a couple of cameras in the back of the room, an image of the person on stage is projected onto the big screen… 5 or 10 times their actual size. It used to be that only football coliseums and NBA arenas had I-Mag. But today, it seems that every church with more than 50 people has I-Mag, because American Jesus likes really big things.

American Jesus is running for President:
I sense a message is being broadcast that if you are a true Christian in America, you will align with a particular political party; or at least Jesus would. We all seem to forget that when Jesus first came on the scene in the middle east, he said he was not here to run for office. But that was way back 2,000 years ago, I’m quite sure that today American Jesus would run for President.

American Jesus boycotts Disneyland… but not Las Vegas:
American Jesus is mad about a lot of things, that’s why so many Christians spent so many years boycotting Disneyland; while they held conventions in Las Vegas. But here’s what a lot of people want to know, what is American Jesus for? We know what he’s against, but what is he most passionate about? What makes his heart beat fast? That’s what everyone wants to know.

American Jesus looks caucasian:
I’m not sure where the idea came from that Jesus would not look like he was from the middle east. Maybe it was the pictures of him we saw when we were kids. Because Jesus looked caucasian in the picture of him holding sheep, that hung in my Sunday School room; and that is what he looked like in the stained glass windows in the old sanctuary. Or maybe we think like that because we all have this idea that Jesus will look a lot like me.
. . .

The good news is, Jesus looks like God; Jesus is not an American.

And even better, the Bible says Jesus is for people from every country on every continent on this planet: “And they sang a new song: ‘You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.’" Rev. 5:9-10

MEET MADDEN

This is Madden. I’m guessing Madden is about six months old. I met Madden when I was walking through the Chimpampa village in Malawi with high schoolers from The Grove, going hut to hut distributing mosquito nets. Madden was sitting on his mothers lap, on a bamboo mat, in front of their mud hut. I thought Madden was awesome.

Madden is why we keep giving away mosquito nets in Africa. You see, every 30 seconds a child in Africa dies of malaria. The net we left for Madden really might save his life. That’s the hope.

This is Moses. I’ve known Moses for quite a few years. I ran into Moses when we were back in Malawi last month, it was really good to see an old friend. But Moses’ story is quite a bit different from Madden’s. Moses is why I first started asking people at The Grove to give nets away in Malawi. Moses had baby twin daughters, about Madden’s age. They both contracted malaria. And before he could tell me or anyone else who could help… they died. I didn’t even know they were sick until Moses asked me if I could help pay for their coffins.

Every time I return to Malawi I give Moses a hand full of mosquito nets -- even though it feels WAY too late -- I know he has three more children who need the nets. I really wish I had nets to give away when Moses’ tiny girls needed them.

But it’s not too late for Madden, and all the other toddlers in Malawi. That’s the hope. That’s why we keep giving away nets in Africa.

LOVE IS BETTER THAN WAR

I spent the last two weeks bouncing and sloshing across Liberia's rugged roads, with our team of 29 from The Grove, to four of the country's largest cities, Yekepa, Ganta, Buchannan, and Monrovia. The message we carried, the message I preached was LOVE IS BETTER THAN WAR.

War messed up Liberia for 15 years and everyone in Liberia is ready for something better, something new: that's why we carried the message that the love of Jesus Christ is so much better than the bitterness of war.

I spent my second day in Liberia in Karnpleh, a town near the Ivorian boarder. Karnpleh is where the war started. Karnpleh is where Charles Taylor recruited his first boy soldiers. So Karnpleh was the town we chose to start THE LOVE LIBERIA PROJECT, and it was in Karnpleh that we began telling all Liberians why Love is Better than War.

Hit play and let Scott Erickson tell you about our day in Karmpleh: