Today, B.Leung ('92) and I were serving yogurt, fruit and cutlery to the people. After we served, we had the opportunity to eat lunch with the people that came to the soup kitchen. We sat with two men. One was called Peter, the other Mark. I wanted to start talking to them about the Bible immediately because both of their names were from the Bible. However, I had to control my tongue since we weren't allowed to share the Gospel. Peter was a senior aged person. I don't think he is homeless but he lives off pension.
Peter told us a lot about his past occupation experiences and how he lost them. I felt bad for him because it was university students that made him lose his job once. He said that he thought I was Japanese. haha and how he couldn't differentiate between the Chinese people and the Japanese people and all the other Asians.
Soon after, he started reading the newspaper. He commented about everything on the first page of the paper. He started talked about the nuclear contamination in Japan and how it would affect the water in the ocean. He talked about the food supply and how it would decrease due to this problem. He said that the water will spread and affect Vancouver. When he said that I was thinking about the book of Revelations. I think it said that 1/10 or was it 1/4 of the water on the earth would be contaminated. Wow...a greater sign that Jesus is coming back soon. (Dangg...when I was typing this I felt something flow back and forth through my body...)
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I was thinking about outreach and this soup kitchen. I have more ideas for next year's outreach ministry. I hope the ministry turns out okay because committee was thinking about scrapping the ministries during the last membership meeting. It was disappointing to hear that....
1 comment:
thanks for sharing about your experience in soup kitchen, your desire to share the gospel, and also your desire to see soup kitchen as part of outreach ministry.
so you are disappointed because ministry might be scrapped on next year? Well, that is not decided yet, since it was a suggestion.
But I want to give you a bit more of background on how ministries were formed, and the pros and cons.
Ministries were formed in Fall 2008. Before that, CCF didn't have DGs, but cell groups (worship, men, women, etc), and our outreach consisted of doing a termly thing (Lifesong which is a music/drama production based on someone's testimony and coffeehouse). So formal ministries came on Fall 2008, because committee decided to bring more structure and clarify roles so that people who want to serve in a certain area have a clear place to go. Also, committee wanted to make more areas of serving available. So caring, outreach, AV were formed (prayer and worship existed already).
At the same time DGs first started that term because discipleship was lacking. Another complaint was that there are many cell groups and many activities going on in CCF, and people were burning out or not committing enough to one thing. So committee wanted people to commit on the most important aspect of our lives, which is our relationship with God, and the growth in discipleship.
The challenge is that DG is fairly a new concept in CCF (waterloo), and we haven't really fully transitioned in to a fellowship that is fully DG-based. What I mean is that not everyone understands the implications of a DG, and not all DGs are really fulfilling their purpose.
Now, with the existing ministries, the same problem arises as that there are many things going in CCF, and people don't know what to commit, and the priority of discipleship is not encouraged.
I am not saying that ministries or other Christian activities are bad, they are actually good! But as a fellowship we need to see what the root problem is. If there is a lack of evangelism, making good outreach programs might not be the solution. Even though it can be beneficial, it can address a symptom, but not the cause. Perhaps, people in the fellowship are not convinced that a Christian should share the gospel? So, we have to go there and see how people can be encouraged (that was just an example).
Another thing, I was in the first meeting ever in Caring ministry, and we concluded that our aim is to make this ministry disappear? Why? Do you think this is shocking? Well, Caring ministry was formed because CCF is not very good at caring, so that they day we no longer need it, means that every CCFer is naturally caring.
Same applies for outreach, if everyone obeys the Great Commission, there is really no need to have an outreach ministry. As people will just naturally do outreach on their own, and when they meet up, instead of chilling, maybe people will just go and share the gospel around.
The idea is that DGs will be the engines to emphasize all these things (men/women stuff, bible studies, Christian living, outreach).
But yeah, what about going to soup kitchen? You don't really need a ministry to go to soup kitchen? If there is a vision that God has given you to drive for soup kitchen, by all means, pray and discern!
And if it is a yes, it can be something that you can do with DGs! Like having different DGs going on different days or so.
Anyways, I think I was rather incoherent, so if you want to talk about it more, just email me :)
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