A great day for our church...

Sunday was a wonderful day at Ridgeview. Tommy finished up our God on Film series, using the movie "Pay it Forward" to challenge our church to a "Summer of Service." He encouraged each church member to begin making personal random acts of kindness to establish a bridge of God's love to our community.

Here is the exiting part: I know other churches have done this before, but it was a huge step for us. At the climax of his sermon, Tommy asked us each to reach under our chairs to find a $5 bill taped to the bottom of the chair. It didn't take a genius to look around the room and see that $5 under each chair adds up to quite a bit of money! The challenge was this: take this $5, and begin a lifestyle of servant evangelism - today. By the church investing in you, there can be no excuses about not being able to do something, at least not this time. Reach out to a waitress over lunch, a customer at Panara bread, or a gas station attendant. See if God doesn't impact our community.

As the outreach minister, let me tell you that there is no better way in which to spend this sum of money. No outreach project that I can put together will ever have the impact that this will have in our community.

OK, so now for the early aftermath from such a challenge: immediately after the service, an individual decided to reimburse the church for all the money placed under each chair. A woman in need in attendance Sunday at our church going through some difficult times received $5 from a number of different people. I even talked to someone Sunday afternoon who would not call themselves a Christian, that was at church and decided they too would serve someone.

What a great day!