St. John Relief

You can donate to those who lost their homes in the St. John Fire here. They also need a lot of different household items (also indicated on the website).

the way to raise support (love this!)

I just saw something so cool in Philippians 4, and I am tucking it away for the next time I go on a mission trip, or even the next time I am asked to support someone on a mission trip.

Long story short, at the end of Paul's letter to the church at Philippi, he thanks them for giving him money/resources/what have you to help support him when we was in need on his missionary journey.

"Nevertheless, you have done well to share with me in my affliction... you sent a gift more than once for my needs." Philippians 4:15-16

And then in the next verse he gets to the profound stuff.

"Not that I seek the gift itself, but I seek for the profit which increases to your account."

Translation: I don't need your money because I have learned to be content in all circumstances and I trust God will accomplish his work without your money, BUT I am so glad that you gave to me because giving to the Lord's work equates to profit in your heavenly bank account, and I badly want THAT for you more than I want anything from you.

Love it! Love it! Love it!

G.K. Chesterson Quote

Convicting quote. (At least for me.) What do you think about it?

"What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert--himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt - the Divine Reason. . . . The new skeptic is so humble that he doubts if he can even learn. . . . There is a real humility typical of our time; but it so happens that it's practically a more poisonous humility than the wildest prostrations of the ascetic. . . . The old humility made a man doubtful about his efforts, which might make him work harder. But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims, which makes him stop working altogether. . . . We are on the road to producing a race of man too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table."

G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy [Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co., 1957], pp. 31-32

This quote comforts and convicts me at the same time. It's comforting for someone like me who is severely introspective; I was never meant to be able to trust what I find in my own heart. It's also convicting; do I speak the word of God without fear?

props to twitter

I myself do not twitter (and have been known to poke fun), but in the last 24 hours, I watched twitter work wonders as a mobilizing tool.

You may know that there was a huge fire in an apartment complex in the St. John's neighborhood of Austin yesterday. St. John's is one of the poorest areas of town, and it also happens to be the place where our church has purchased land for a building.

Well, this afternoon around 1pm, I got on Facebook to see tons of my fellow Austin Stone friends had tweeted? about opportunities to help gather food and clothing for the 300?? victims. You would not believe the number of volunteers and donations that had been made by 2:30pm when I arrived at Iglesias Ebenezer Church in St. Johns.

I guess the Lord can use even the cheesiest tools to establish His Kingdom on earth and bring hope and help to those who are suffering. :)