WHO MATTERS TO JESUS?
THE $200,000 QUESTION
Jesus said something powerfully penetrating in Matthew 25:35-40:
“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes, and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me…When did we do this? …Whatever you did for the least of these…you did for me.”
What is Jesus saying here? Notice 3 things:
- Responsibility and reward — God will bless faithfulness.
- Compelling challenge to ACT — True compassion requires action.
- Those who hurt matter to Jesus — The “least of these” are not less valuable, they are simply more vulnerable.
Every person has been created in the image of God (imago Dei) and has intrinsic value. Yet, some in our society are more vulnerable. Hurting people really matter to Jesus and they should matter to us.
Ask yourself, what does this mean to me? I’ve answered it a couple of ways:
- First, desperation in others should elicit compassion in me.
- Second, when we reach out in Christian love to others, we touch the heart of God.
As a church, we are actively involved in compassion ministry in our community and county. Last year alone we reached out with 52,746 acts of compassion. You can access our Compassion Book here to learn more about the 20+ compassion ministries emanating from BCA. Further, I invite you to listen to my message this past weekend as we share our dream to double and even triple our reach. Listen to message here.
Over 50,000 acts of compassion is a lot of love. But imagine if we could double and even triple our reach! For this to happen we need to enlarge our scope. We are presently looking for a facility in downtown Everett to launch the Bethany Compassion Center. The BCC will house a growing number of ministries and serve as a base for our growing outreach to our local community.
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Compassion is the language God uses to minister to people in need. We are not to just talk about it, we need to act on it. We are to:
–see a hurt and heal it
–find a need and meet it
–look for emptiness and fill it
–detect hopelessness and change it
–watch for aloneness and comfort it
Imagine a center at the hub of our growing and flourishing compassion outreach. BCA is a large church with many volunteers and people eager to serve others in need. We want to remove the imaginary lid due to the lack of space and create a branch campus of BCA that focuses on networking with community agencies and add to the good that others are doing with faith-based compassion and care. Be sure to read the vision doc to learn more.
We have opened the BCC Building Fund and hope to raise $200,000 to acquire a facility for more compassion offices, counseling suite, rooms for tutoring and life skills training, a food market (we are operating out of a closet now), a thrift store one day, and so much more.
Would you consider signing up online to serve on one of the many serve teams of the BCC (Volunteer Here). Also, would you consider joining the monthly financial support team by giving online to the BCC Building fund (Pledge Here). Perhaps you could give $10 per month or $100 per month or $1000 per month to meet human need.
We know this is a big faith step for BCA. But we believe so strongly that God wants us to expand our compassion reach that we “dare to dream” of how God might use us in an expanded way. Thank you for praying and pondering how you can become a part of making the BCC dream a reality.
