MattGlover.com

Our Urban Summer Mission kicks off tomorrow with some team stuff over the weekend and then a series of projects during the week. Here’s a little of what we’ll be doing:

A team will be going into Eastern Emergency Relief. EER is a volunteer run agency that helps people in need in our community. January if a difficult time for them as many of the volunteers are away on holidays, so our team will help fill some of the gaps.

A team will be going into Mullauna Secondary College to set up rooms with new furniture, to spread mulch on the garden beds and to paint the outside os some buildings.

Another team will be going into the community to help residents with home maintenance jobs.

I’ll be running some cartoon drawing classes for 10 - 15 year olds

A team will be running a kids program for the duration of the week.

A whole army of people will be providing food for everybody else while another team will be running an evening cafe.

During the eveing, some bands will play and a number of differnt activities (movies, box wars, games etc) will make sure we’re well and truely worn out!

Most importantly though, a team of people will be praying for the whole time while everything esle is happening. If you remember, it would be great if you could say some prayers too.

As a kind of pre-Urban Summer message on Sunday night, I briefly touched on the parable of the seeds. This story never loses it’s power when it comes to real mission, so I thought it was worth examining it again. Here’s a summary of what we need to BE when entering into Uran Summer:

1. We need to be realistic - not eveybody will embrace the story of Jesus. We might even face some people that are openly hostile. That’s just the way it is. Thinking that this week is going to transform the face of the community is naive, but we can hope that it will be the beginning of a transformation in the hearts of some we encounter.

2. We need to be patient. Een those that do end up embracing faith will probably not do so for a while yet. Urban Summer will finsih on the 21st, but the mission will continue as we welcome people into our community and engage with them in the living of life and faith.

3. We need to be faithful. the farmer in the story scattered his seed everywhere - not just on the good soil. It would be easy for us to simply o to those we feel comfortable with, but that’s not what God calls us to. He doesn’t say “be comfortable” but “be faithful”. that means going where other won’t, to people others ignore.

4. Be careful. there’s a danger that we can plant the wrong seeds. If, at the conclusion of urban Summer, people walk away thinking that we’re nice people or have set up a nice facility, and have no more awareness of a God who loves them, then we have failed. We’re actually planting weeds that can choke out real faith. So, we need to be careful to ensure we’re planting the right seed - the word of God.

I’ll update progress here as I can, but the schedule is pretty full. And, if you’re in the area and want to be involved or at least drop in for a visit - please do!