How Do You Find a Home in a Day?
Today Jarrett and Jeanne will view over a dozen homes in downtown Chicago in an attempt to lock in where we will be living…in 3 weeks. This is not how we would have planned for or desired, but it seems like God is more interested in growing our faith than He is coddling to our comfort.
You can follow our adventures through Jarrett’s Twitter Feed. However, we would ask that every time you see a Tweet, you PRAY BIG that God would continue to provide above and beyond what our Family needs or could possibly imagine. We are excited to see what God brings….in the next few hours! Thank you for being a part of this with us.
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How do you find a HOME in a day? You don’t. You find a house and you make it a HOME.
Chicago…A New City
The following is pulled from the Front Page of the Chicago’s Pastors Alliance. Our good friends Alvin Bibbs and Daniel Hill are a part of an amazing movement to see God Transform Chicago into the city He desires for it to be. I challenge you to read this (like…all of it) and take 5 minutes to dream about and pray for Your City. Pray that you would be a part of what God and others are doing to help it become the kind of city that is a blessing to this world.
CPA’s prayer is:
That some day, there will be a plethora of prevailing, wholistic, multi-cultural churches and communities that fully represent a City with broad shoulders. Through these churches, the Holy Spirit will empower its Pastors and leaders to eradicate homelessness, unemployment, improper educational structures and systems, unfair housing practices, and the class system as we know it today.
This New City will represent the words found in Matt 5:14: “A City on a hill cannot be hidden.” In our City, Chicago, lights will shine so bright that no one will be able to focus on the texture or the tone of each other’s skin. The barriers that divide different races and ethnic groups will be eliminated. Our City, Chicago, will be salt and light to others who will marvel and wonder “How in the world did they pull that off?”
Our City, Chicago, will no longer lead the way in decaying buildings, churches, communities, and families. And our Father in Heaven’s heart will be filled with joy and gladness and His angels will rejoice and be glad.
A New City, which genuinely believes in the power of the local church as the true instrument of change and hope for the world. A City where all of God’s children, regardless of gender, race, socio-economic status, or position, are welcomed and treated equally under God and under the law. A New City that truly is committed to the fact that God can and will make things right.
…And in the end, all of this came about because a small band of courageous and radical Christian leaders trusted God and each other long enough to try and make a difference!
amen. and amen.
Church and the Stressed Out City
As we prepare to head to Chicago to launch Soul City Church we know that we will face unique opportunities and unique challenges to live out the Kingdom of God in the City. We recently came across an article in Forbes that rated Chicago as the Country’s most Stressed Out City…for the Second Year in a row! Awesome.
Forbes sites that over crowding, poor air quality, a high 11% unemployment rate and free-falling home values have created a cocktail of constant worry affecting many in the Windy City. Again…awesome.
So, the question is – What can a church do to love and serve the Stressful Realities of people in their city. We all know that Chicago isn’t the only stressed out place on the planet. As our lives grow ever complex, Stress seems to be a given. So what do we do? How do we live? How do we serve? How do we create a City of Peace in the midst of so much Stress?
We’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas…
