Can You Imagine?
By Cara Taylor
Director of Outreach
We have been talking about love and relationships in January. As if to put it to the test, my entire family will split up next week, but for a great reason! The kids and the parents are on two different global outreach teams in Mexico and Thailand. Wherever you will be, Sunday’s final message on why LOVE matters so much will fuel you up…and your prayers will fuel up our teams!
Tomorrow, the church will commission 27 students and 10 adult leaders to serve alongside our partner Agua Viva in Ensenada, Mexico. A trip like this requires lots of togetherness…mutual trust, flexibility, positivity, and unity of purpose. So, this awesome group has been preparing since November to strengthen their relationships with each other and to understand God’s mission of love for the world.
The journey is as much about who they are becoming as it is about what they will be doing. It is about seeing Jesus in our Mexican family as much as it is loving like Jesus so that people see him in us, too.
In a world that divides people across borders, our team will return to places we already know and love and invest in the unity of the church. In the El Roble neighborhood, the team will come alongside Pastor Miguel’s church to expand their gathering space, repair bicycles, and bring fun and biblical encouragement with kids’ programs. Agua Viva seminary students will host and worship along with our students.
The team’s inspiration comes from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, one of the greatest love passages of all. Paul is reminding the church that there are no insiders and outsiders in Christ. It is a multi-ethnic family where the Holy Spirit lives (Eph 2:19-22). This is Paul’s prayer…would you pray it over them?
I am kneeling down before the father, the one who gives the name of “family” to every family that there is, in heaven and on earth. My prayer is this: that he will lay out all the riches of his glory to give you strength and power, through his spirit, in your inner being; that the Messiah may make his home in your hearts, through faith; that love may be your root, your firm foundation; and that you may be strong enough (with all God’s holy ones) to grasp the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the Messiah’s love—though actually it’s so deep that nobody can really know it! So may God fill you with all his fullness.
So: to the one who is capable of doing far, far more than we can ask or imagine, granted the power which is working in us—to him be glory, in the church, and in Messiah Jesus, to all generations, and to the ages of ages! Amen! (Ephesians 3:14-21, NTFE)
Speaking of all generations, while our two teenage kids are in Mexico, Judson and I will join another adult team of seven to reunite with Chapel Hill’s prison ministry partners at House of Blessing in Bangkok, Thailand. You can pray for us, too! (Last August, we helped Washington State Corrections host Pastor Soonthorn and four Thai prison directors to improve how people reintegrate into society). They have invited us into the prisons to share what Jesus has done in our lives. And we get to see his power at work in their church where 90% of the members were formerly incarcerated, now living full lives for his glory!
To be honest, the scope of Thai prison life surpasses my knowledge. We wonder how we could have anything to offer. Between baptisms in prison and spending time with the children of prisoners, I expect they will show us that our imagination for God’s power to change our lives is too small. Even if I’m willing to send my children to Mexico next week, I doubt I’d have the strength to let others raise them like the women in prison must. But in the mysterious grace of our one good Father, sharing our stories will somehow grow their holy imagination, too.
We all need this vast global family to even begin to grasp the depth of God’s love—deeper than the oceans separating us. But you don’t need to cross an ocean or border to meet them.
Start with the “outsider” nearest to you. A family member who is at odds. Another group you fear. Love them!
Start with the sibling in Christ who is furthest away. Where they suffer persecution. Where they are forgotten in their poverty. Pray with compassion that they would know they are not alone.
Cara
PS – Visit with the global outreach teams in the Lobby at church Sunday! A Winter Clearance pop-up sale will raise funds for the ministries, and you can take home a deal from the Festival of Hope inventory.