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Revolutionary Generosity

I’ve got a great way, Summit Church, we can really bless our community…

On Sunday we passed out new bumper magnets for our newly expanded Hope for RDU ministry.  Now all over the triangle, our neighbors will be able to see that we “HEART” our cities of Durham, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill.  This is part of gearing up for our fifth annual Week of Hope (July 5-12).  Along with these magnets we also gave out magnets for a big partner in the Week of Hope event, DurhamCares.   DurhamCares is a Christian organization that gets the community to better support local charities and in turn it helps the charities serve the community better.  Their cutting-edge work is well worth our support. DurhamCares is THE group through whom we (the Summit Church) do most of our ministry to the community in Durham. DC is led by a very good, and close friend of mine, Henry Kaestner, founder of bandwidth.com. We work with these guys BECAUSE THEY DO THINGS RIGHT. They are the best there is.

A key piece in the work of DurhamCares is a program called Success Grants.  This program promises to revolutionize the way that people donate to non-profit organizations by encouraging these groups to focus on planning and achievement of success based outcomes.  DurhamCares worked hard with local charities over the past year helping them to gauge what success would look like for them as an organization and for the people they serve.  The non-profits then created their own goals which they are committing to achieve.  If they reach these standards of success, DurhamCares will reward them with a $10,000 grant.  With your help, it could be more.

By going to http://www.durhamcares.org/index.php/grant  you can find out the 2009 goals for these organizations, ways to volunteer with them, and you can also pledge money to the success grant initiative.  This is a great way for us to love our community, and the Summit Church is fully behind it. The organizations that are involved in this program are: Big Brothers Big Sisters, Durham Eagles, Durham Rescue Mission, Habitat for Humanity, Housing for New Hope, Pregnancy Support Services, Samaritan Health Center, and TROSA.   The guys at DurhamCares think that this could be the start of something amazing in Durham and it could also be used as a template for other organizations across the country. 

Take time to check out which of these charities inspire you with the goals that they have set.  Is it seeing children that are placed in mentoring relationships?  Do you have a heart for seeing homeless people find the shelter that they need?  Your support in this initiative is one of the special opportunities available to show that you HEART RDU.

What are the Biggest Challenges to the Gospel in RDU?

I have made it a point to "study" the things I love. I am a student of my wife. I want to learn how she thinks, what she likes, and what makes her react the way she does in certain situations.

I also want to be that way with the city in which God has planted me to minister. It says in Acts 17 that Paul "saw the idolatry of Athens," was provoked by it and then spoke out against it. Being an effective witness to the Gospel in the area in which we've been planted means understanding the "idols" that our culture holds on to.

Knowing our particular city is crucially important. Mark Twain once remarked that if you live in NYC, the question is "How much do you make?," if you live in Boston it is, "How much do you know?," and if you live in Philadelphia it is "What family are you from?" In other words, the idols of NYC, Boston, and Philadelphia are money, knowledge and pedigree, respectively.

What are they in RDU? I do my best to read local periodicals and stay as up as I can with RDU culture, but I think you probably have some perspective I don't. What do you see? What are the biggest obstacles to the Gospel?

So far, I think the biggest three are:

• "busy-ness": people are just too into doing junk and are so distracted with toys, sports, and entertainment that they just don't have time to think through life's most important matters. That's an all-over-America phenomena, but it seems especially bad in RDU.
• "upward mobility": that seems to be what is underlying a lot of business and career in this area. It is a common theme in commercials.
• "knowledge": we seem particularly impressed with academic pedigrees and looking sophisticated.

What else do you see?

1030

This is for all you RDU residents... I got a call from our friend Stu Epperson this morning, who owns AM 1030. This is a station with some of America's best Bible teacher/preachers broadcast on a continual basis. (They have broadcast in this area for a while, but West Raleigh and Durham got really bad coverage.) Well, they have jacked their wattage up and now you can hear them pretty clearly. Check it out! It's a great resource.