Compassion By Design

I Learned Thanksgiving by Looking Back.

I am firm believer in strategic planning. The compassion ministries that I work with personally are always challenged to narrow their mission, focus their efforts and walk intentionally toward their future. This ability to set a course helps us to find supporters, say no to things we don’t need to do, and have some way to measure our progress.

Of course, just because we plan, that doesn’t mean that we can determine where the path that we select will lead. So many times, my plans take me into a situation or opportunity about which I had no advance warning. Things that I worked for turn out differently, things also happen by surprise that take me much farther than I had hoped. As I look back, I can only conclude that the real navigational chart for my life is not in my hands. I make life choices based upon my best wisdom, but I have discovered that whatever happens, either good or bad, there is a design beyond my comprehension that will unfold.

“It this way In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.” Proverbs 16:9

I guess my best wisdom is really based upon what I see when I look back. I see the consistent redemption and deeper purpose that gives me a sense of confidence about the providence that guides my life. This perspective helps me to trust my future into the same benevolent hands, and it helps me to be thankful each day—even when a circumstance doesn’t fit my plans.

I will be taking time this week to be thankful for so many things in my life, and for the each day ahead, which I know in advance are under God’s careful guidance. I hope you will join me, and entrust your days to His plan. We have so much to be thankful for, and days to come for which we can offer thanks in advance.

The two day event in Monroe, GA began early in the afternoon with a welcome by David Mills and an introduction to the heart of Angel Food Ministries (AFM) by the organization’s founder, Pastor Joe Wingo of Emmanuel Praise Church. The participants were also introduced to the event’s guest speakers, Elizabeth Kearny and Kate Gordon.

Elizabeth Kearny spoke on the possible connections between the ministry Angel Food provides and the service WorkNet Solutions offers. According to their website, WorkNet seeks to help “candidates find a sense of purpose, and begin a career which allows them to be involved in what God created them to do.” Potentially those who host AFM sites could refer participants to WorkNet with the hope of employment.

Kate Gordon oversees a networking system in Pittsburgh, PA called Network of Hope. Her business’s responsibility is to connect needs with people who can meet those needs in an effort to holistically care for the community.

The best ministry, according to Rural Compassion Founder Steve Donaldson, is one which treats its participants as guests of honor, with dignity and respect, and even a level of friendship. This also requires that the hosts be willing to share their lives with the AFM recipients.

Host site directors traveled from as far away as Kansas, Connecticut and Michigan to learn more about how to expand their ministry with AFM. However, the information’s practicality allowed those uninvolved with AFM to leave with changed.

Larry Pierce, one attendee who is not an AFM host still enjoyed what Kearny, Gordon and Donaldson shared from their wisdom. Pierce especially enjoyed David’s devotional on Wednesday morning which addressed our perception of those we serve.

Compassion by Design founder David Mills also spoke on Wednesday morning to explain the benefits of completing a needs assessment. The ultimate goal is to not waste time on needs that are not there or to miss needs that are present in the community.

Tuesday’s activities included a special tour of the AFM facilities led by warehouse manager Todd Biggs. Bootcamp participants also enjoyed a Southern-style barbeque held outside the AFM campus.

Although the event officially ended at 4:45 on Wednesday evening, Participants also had the option of helping with the food distribution after attending the Wednesday evening service at Emmanuel Praise.

Ultimately, the two days spent in Monroe, GA at the Angel Food Ministries Headquarters were well worth the participants time and money. The conference provided an opportunity for hosts to connect with one another and benefit from the wisdom of other leaders from around the nation.

For more information about any of the organizations above, please contact Natalie Lozano: Natalie@noprofit-expressions.com. Special thanks to Larry Pierce for his provision of facts from the trip.

     Not a word we use much today– ignoble.  Among several meanings, ignoble refers to something that represents low aims, low quality or that which is simply not noble—of low rank.  Shooting low and living below our calling—ignoble.  If we have personal relationship with God through Jesus, we haven’t been called to live there, instead we are called to the character of highest nobility, to have life aims that are high—to aim high in response to high calling.   This idea of nobility in our culture has come to be something of a sarcasm.  We identify efforts that are lofty, but ill advised as “that was noble, but…”  In other words, if we say you are noble, we are thinking Don Quixote– jousting at windmills– efforts that weren’t really achievable after all. 

     In the Apostle Paul’s letter to Timothy (chapter 2:20-21), he talks about this idea of noble and ignoble—: “In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for noble purposes and some for ignoble.  If a man cleanses himself from the latter, he will be an instrument for noble purposes made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work.

To put this in more modern terms we can read the same passage from The Message: “In a well-furnished kitchen there are not only crystal goblets and silver platters, but waste cans and compost buckets-some containers used to serve fine meals, others to take out the garbage. Become the kind of container God can use to present any and every kind of gift to his guests for their blessing.”

The difference between the really prized dishes and those that are used for recycling and waste is the use to which they are dedicated.  You can use your wedding china for cat food if you want to—and you can serve thanksgiving dinner on paper plates, but the vessel just doesn’t fit the use.

     This passage tells us two things that are very important about nobility and honor.  First, we are called to be the fine china and silver goblet type of vessel.  This is not a commentary on personal taste, but a metaphor for the quality and elevation of our aim in life.  Our association with Christ has resulted in an opportunity for usefulness that far surpasses any previous purpose, and rests not on our own identity, but on the identity of the Master.  He chose us to serve his high and truly noble purposes.  The second important point of this passage is that honor and dishonor, nobility and ignobility is our choice.  We choose to cleanse ourselves of purposes and uses for our lives that fall beneath God’s standard and purpose.  “If a man” cleanses himself from a lower purpose, he will be fit for use by the Master.  In our information overload, recreation crazed, self-centered society, it is really easy to get attached to lots of good things, and some really bad ones.  We have to continually ask if we are full of items of his choosing, or simply full of something that falls short of his purpose.  Life purpose is lived out in a series of choices about the small things, resulting in a pattern that we fill our whole person with– heart, soul, mind and strength. 

     What is the highest purpose for your life?  Are you setting aside your time, your energy and focusing your life on its highest purpose?  Is the aim of your life something that the Highest Noble can use to sip tea?  Have you been called a Don Quixote, and been badgered into accepting lower goals?  Or are you pressing on to fulfill your calling?  Even in the radical world of church planting, we can sometimes settle for what is easiest.  A new church is never easy, but sometimes we choose the easy way. 

 Compassion by Design is set aside to serve those leaders who want to win neighborhoods through community service, building churches that are truly missional at their core, resulting in community transformation.  We want to change peoples’ mind about who Jesus is, and who His people are.  Since evangelicals haven’t really been doing that on a large scale domestically for fifty years or more, maybe it’s a harder way, or at least a way that we have to relearn.  To us, and we hope to God, it’s fine china.

What a view from the room here in Estes Park, CO.  I have been enjoying time with the church planting leaders of the Christian Churches and getting a real education on state of the art planting.  So much has been learned about how to get planters ready and how to support them through effective networks, since my early Bible College days when I was watching and listening to planting pioneers like Ralph Moore in CA.  Significant effort goes into planter selection and preparation–but we can miss an important opportunity to start truly missional churches if we spend the entire pre-launch period focusing on mechanics.  I am convinced that this period can also yield some incredibly important outcomes in the depth of planter insight into culture, the growth of a larger plant team, and the development of credibility and large numbers of community relationships. 

 How can the pre-launch produce all these outcomes? The answer is–When the planter has tools that take the focus off of mechanics and onto relationships and understanding culture. Typically we use demographic and lifestyle reports, but that can become just another task on the checklist. The use of a needs assessment as a first step in a larger strategy for pre-launch community service,  can help the planter toward these important missional outcomes.  Traditional needs assessments come from the domain of professional social workers and public agencies, but the essential work of a needs assessment is about making people connections in a listening mode.  Compassion by Design has reworked the best parts of a needs assessment so that it allows a church planting team to spend intentional time building insights into the culture  and making people connections.  The team part is important–although the reformated needs assessment can be completed just by the planter and spouse, engaging the entire team in this process will bring them all along as community connectors.

 Some very important things happen in the hearts of the team as they are interviewing and surveying the community–not only do they meet potentially hundreds of new people in a short amount of time, but they also hear the heartaches and values of the community in which they are working to plant.  This insight allows the ministries and (hopefully) community service efforts of the church planting team to be more clearly focused on felt needs in the community, and along with a number of other benefits, introduces the church to the community in a way that says “we are here to serve” in a very credible way.   A needs assessment approached properly can help propel the new church to a much healthier start.

Check out the new needs assessment kit at http://www.compassionbydesign.org/church-planting.html