Monday, April 21, 2008

The Adopting Church

I will admit that God was moving me with disturbing images and stories over the weekend. I watched both “City of God” and “Blood Diamond” over the weekend and had my heart torn to shreds by the imagery that my eyes took in. Today, I read the following story on CNN about a little boy in Africa that flees slavery to return home.

I thought the themes and the political agendas Blood Diamond was pushing in its story was pretty telling. During one part of the movie, Solomon (the African man looking for his family) asks the journalist (who is writing a story on the illegal diamond trade business) whether or not Americans will come to their aid after they read her article. We all know the answer to this question. We watch these movies, read these books, read these stories and articles and we mostly don’t do anything. We shake our heads and say, “That’s a shame. We should really do something about that.” And then we don’t.

This is why we are to become the “Adopting Church”. So that we can partner with a pastor, who partners with a church, which partners with a community, which partners with a village, which partners with a region, which partners with a country… Our prayer is that this adopting church concept becomes viral…that other churches and other affluent people will wake up to what we are called to do.

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