June 26, 2011

"How is it going over at St. Philip?"

    Probably one of the first things out of someone's mouth when they see me around Mt. Bethel is, "How is it going over at St. Philip."  As I consider everything that has happened this past year, my response has to be "wonderful."
    For those of you who do not know, St. Philip is our mission church located in South Cobb County just beside Osborne High School on Windy Hill Road. Mt. Bethel was asked to take over the leadership of the church 4 years ago.  In the past year, the community surrounding the church has become the focus of the church. This is a community that is riddled with gang activity, drugs and prostitution.
    The mission statement for St. Philip is "Transforming lives to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ."  When we presented this as the mission, we received many arguments. I even got an "anonymous letter" telling me we got it all wrong. Shouldn't it be "spreading the Gospel to transform lives?"  We didn't think so.  As a mission church and a church focused upon the mission of spreading the Gospel of Christ, we believe that the reason for transforming lives is so those who are transformed can then go out and reach others for Christ.  I once heard, "the evangelism cycle is not complete until the evangelized becomes the evangelist."  Likewise, I believe the same could be said for the mission field. The mission cycle becomes complete when the mission field becomes the missionary.
    We continue to reach out to the community.  We have children who come to our ministry from very horrific situations that none of us would want for our own children.  However, in the past 6 months we have begun to see the teenagers of St. Philip becoming the missionaries.  Let me share a few examples of that.
    On June 6 we took 47 of the St. Philip children to Camp Evergreen at Winfield.  Every one of these children were given scholarships by the generosity of Mt. Bethel.  However, the really exciting thing about this camp was we had 8 teenagers from St. Philip helping as counselors. 
    On Sunday mornings a team of about 10 teenagers lead the worship service at St Philip. On Communion Sundays, the congregation of St. Philip has no Sunday school classes, an early abbreviated worship service, and then goes out in the community to share the love of Christ that we experienced while taking communion.  Last month we went to the apartment complex down the street from the church and planted flowers.  This work was done by the teenagers.
    This week and next week the teenagers are making sack lunches for the children at Birney Elementary so they can have a meal each day.
    So how is it going at St. Philip?  The mission field is becoming the missionaries!  It is going wonderful! 
    Thank you, Mt. Bethel, for making this possible by looking beyond these yellow walls.
                       

                                                                                   Love in Christ,

                        Jon Ponders