People nobody wants

Here's what I know:

When we go after people nobody wants - God will send us people everybody wants.

It's true.  God's desire for Stone Church is that we continue to reach out to the disadvantaged, the "down and outers", the ones that are the outcast of society.

It's God's will for us as a congregation.

We desire to reach people that nobody cares for, that everyone else has discarded and thrown away.

An analogy for this is the garbage collectors that come once a week and pick up your garbage.  In one sense we are "garbage collectors" as ministers in our church.

We all have garbage in our lives.  Garbage from the past.  Garbage that we hold on to in the present.

Some have more than others.

If you have garbage in your life - and you are at your "wit's end", we desire to minister to you.  We love you.

But here's what I also know:

Have you ever seen what happens to a landfill after it is filled in with garbage?  In many places it becomes a beautiful park or a subdivision where homes are built.

I've seen human garbage come beautiful too.  I've seen the stench of sin turned into the fragrance of heaven.

That's who we are and what we do.

We can't worry about what critics think or say.  Where is God going to send the "garbage" for recycling if He can't put it on our doorstep?

He'll find a place.  If we're not open for business, someone else will be.

But we want to be used by God.

When love, acceptance and forgiveness prevail, the church of Jesus Christ becomes what Jesus was in the world:  a center of love designed for the healing of broken people, and a force for God.

Come one, come all!