Those are the lead lyrics to The Fray's song "You Found Me". That song was the moment this weekend as we talked about Tough Times...Find GOD. The story of Elijah was the foundation for how we can make it through tough times. From the highest of highs to the lowest of lows, if tough times have a purpose….the purpose is to FIND GOD. When we ask ourselves, “What’s the meaning of all this??”I think at the core of what seems to be senseless or self inflicted tough times is that we find God. CS Lewis says it this way, “pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
Here is a story of one person's journey through tough times.
Sunday at Restore we concluded our series, Chasing the Almighty and we looked at what it means to be generous. This has been a great series that has expanded our view of money and resources and how we can move from consumed, to free, to generous. We asked each Restore attender to help us with our local and global intitiaves. Locally we are dreaming and praying that as a new church plant we could become self supporting this year (a year ahead of schedule). People responded very postitively and we are well on our way. This will put us in a much better financial position to reproduce.
Also, we have developed a partnership with C3 Missions. As a result, last November we took up a special offering to help start a church in Cavaillon Haiti. On that day we collected $65,000 and had a matching gift of $25,000 for a $90,000 total to help start a church, build a facility and build two children's home on piece of property in Cavaillon. Since that time another family at Restore decided to fund the third children's home. So by this summer there will be 120 orphans living in the childrens' homes at Cavaillon.
It takes $40/month/child for clothing, food, care, education, medical support...basically all living expenses. We want to have each one of those kids sponsored by a family or individual at Restore. On Sunday we made our first ask and received a strong response and 50 kids were sponsored on that day. I am so looking forward to having all 120 sponsored by this summer. We were able to show the following powerful testimony of Mike and Beth Fox, who started C3.
This past Sunday Restore kicked off our new series, Chasing the Almighty. We are looking at how to respond to our current economic crisis with Biblical truths that are timeless and transformational. Sunday we explored three myths about money.
Money will make me happy
Money will make me secure
My money is my money
Nate Williams put together a great bumper for the series. My son Jake said it was the tightest bumper he has ever seen. Enjoy.