Outreach: Extending Our Borders

“God, I wish you would bless me and extend the borders of my property!” These words are attributed to some guy named Jabez in the Bible book 1 Chronicles 4:10. Jabez plays only a bit role in the Bible but a book entitled “The Prayer of Jabez” by Dr. Bruce Wilkinson has given this minor player major play. I can’t say that I recommend the book any more than I would recommend “The Secret” or “The Power of Positive Thinking” (all three are essentially the same concept). But I remembered Jabez recently when the landscaping company working in my neighbor’s yard made a startling observation; the neighbor had landscaped over about fifteen feet of our property! The neighbor had planted ground cover which had grown over the stone marker placed back in 1968 when the home was built. I didn’t even pray for it and God extended my border! I think something like this is happening to churches too, but not every church sees it as a blessing!

Every day at FUMC Hudson somebody reveals to me that our church “border” has extended.

· A clinical psychologist asks for space to set-up practice in our church reminding the trustees that the region’s mentally ill are underserved. Our border extends fifteen feet into the territory of soldiers returning from war with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and fifteen feet into the realm of survivors of sexual and domestic violence.

· A teen-aged member is accepted for a mission trip to China to learn more about peace. Our border extends fifteen feet into the Republic of China and it extends fifteen feet into the town of Hudson where residents are asked to care about, contribute toward and learn from this extraordinary mission.

· A member is stricken with cancer and we gather around the website Caring Bridge like farm animals gather at the fence looking for any sign of the feed truck. Our border extends fifteen feet toward actually fighting cancer wherever it occurs with every tool in our tool box, and fifteen feet into the realm of Internet Technologies like Caring Bridge that are changing the ways we care.

When I saw that the border of my property extended an additional fifteen feet, my mind went immediately to the responsibility to mow and tend that extra lawn. I think many of us have similar ambivalence about outreach toward new people in our ever-expanding community. “It was the neighbor’s property before, let them continue to maintain it!” We assume someone else is taking responsibility for reaching the mentally ill, people in foreign lands and all of those others who never go to church services and so look for (but only really find superficial) community online. We lament the size of our present lawn and cannot fathom the kind of machine necessary to tend that much and more.

Yet we already have the machinery we need!

Our church has a Vision Fund which was set-up to initiate live-giving new ministries. Anyone on the church with a dream for outreach can send me or a Lay Leader a request for seed money. To see an example of how this works, visit the Pepsi Refesh website HERE.

Next week we will begin revamping our communications so that our message is more helpful to a greater number of people. We currently utilize the pulpit (140), Cable television, E-news (240), Hope for Hudson Website, Front Porch Hudson Blog, Hope for Hudson Facebook Page (47) [along with worship and Vacation Bible Camp Facebook pages], Printed newsletters (250) and of course word-of-mouth conversation for outreach. We can use all of these tools much more effectively.

We are forming a Task Force which will help us understand the needs of our community. This group will meet and research in July and August, presenting findings gradually next Fall so that our church can restructure in order to address the needs we have discovered. By November the church should have a clear since of where God has placed that stone marker and a passionate desire to stick together to tend that new territory. Want to JOIN The group?

We have the machinery to care for the additional territory we are discovering. I also believe we have the determination to “serve God with single mind and willing heart” (a quotation taken from the same book where we find the story of Jabez, 1 Chronicles 28:9. Read the whole text HERE.).

May God increase your border!

Doug