Meeting Needs and Maturing Saints

We serve a relational God - He has made us in order that we might know Him and have fellowship with Him. He specializes in changing hearts and calling people who do not know Him into a relationship with Himself. Psalm 85 states:
4 Restore us, O God of our salvation, And cause Your anger toward us to cease.
5 Will You be angry with us forever? Will You prolong Your anger to all generations?
6 Will You not revive us again, That Your people may rejoice in You?
7 Show us Your mercy, Lord, And grant us Your salvation.

We deserved punishment, but we have received mercy.  We can be thankful that we did not get what we deserved and did not experience torment separation from God for eternity because of our sin.  This loving God is calling us to be agents of His love, to experience the touch of His hand and His movement upon our hearts, so that we can be involved in showing others the answers they seek, that come through a relationship with the Savior.

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Because we have experienced salvation through Christ, now He calls and empowers us to be involved in His work of restoration. 2nd Corinthians 5 says:
18 Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation,
19 that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
20 Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God.

There's a great model that shows how the Church is built as people who have experienced the presence of the Lord seek to walk in what God has done in their lives. Arthur Gonçalves has been in the process of planting a church in the Central Florida city of Sanford.  The key has been to minister to people where they are and then bring them into a church body in order that they may grow and minister to others.

Baptist Press has an article about the ministry. which says that...

The ministry began as he led a group from the Church at Heathrow in Sanford to serve at a downtown homeless center. Soon afterward, the center’s leaders asked him to return and lead Bible study every Monday evening for a year.

Through that experience, God began working on his heart and his wife’s.

Arthur says, “We saw that there was a great need for mercy ministry but also for preaching and Gospel ministry..."  He felt that God was leading him to start a church and began to pray about it.  And, the Lord opened doors:

A local downtown restaurant, The Colonial Room, offered the use of its banquet hall for weekly prayer gatherings which began in January 2020 with six to seven people. In May he joined a local Rotary Club where members began sharing needs of the local police and elderly in the community.

Gonçalves said, “We helped the police department give away gifts to children in need during Christmas. We also help our elderly with groceries and with home and lawn maintenance on some occasions,” adding that the ministry became a “full blown outreach ministry.”  Local restaurants have been providing food and a local church furnished transportation.  Six people have come to Christ, and two have been baptized.

One of those is a man named Adam, who was, according to the story, "pushing a cart" in downtown Sanford when he first came in contact with Arthur.  The article states:

When offered a meal and prayer, he accepted both. And by the end of the night, he also accepted Christ as his personal Savior.

Now 10 months later, Adam is sober, has a job and goes out regularly to evangelize on the streets where he once pushed his cart.

In January of next year, Restoration Church is scheduled to launch, meeting in an elementary school in an "impoverished" area. Gonçalves stated, “There are 633 students at the school, and 92 percent of them receive a free or reduced cost lunch...There are lots of needs to be met at the school itself where the average income for a family of four is $30,000.”

In Sanford, Florida, it starts with reaching out to a person in need, but there is a call to do more - to share the gospel and perhaps even see that person come to Christ.  Then, the walk of discipleship begins, including participation in the local church body.  The Church's role is holistic - from meeting needs to maturing saints.  The Bible has the prescription and we can all be part of the infrastructure to some degree, resulting in truly changed lives. 

We can look to the Holy Spirit to indicate the need and to equip us to reach out in order that needs can be met and lives can be changed.  He is desiring to do amazing work in the lives of people, and is calling us to partner with Him in order to see heart change.  In a world of brokenness, we can allow God to bring healing and restoration in our lives so we can be ministers of reconciliation in His name.