never saw this one coming!

its been a long time since i've thought about this blog, but in the past week i've had so many various thoughts about things I wanted to blog about. and while hopefully i'll go back to those things, today i wanted to share a small part of this morning. in the past week, I've had more opportunities to share uganda photos & stories with more of my coworkers and so its been stirring in my mind again. while i havent felt much of a desire to go to church on sunday mornings (not to mention not having the opportunity in the past month), today i was remembering church at Greater Life with Patricia and Jelis. And I was thinking of how God got me through this past week when I thought there was no way I was going to make it. So I decided I'd go to church this morning, remembering my sweet girls and wanting to say thanks to God.

the church i went to, from what i could tell, has just been going through a time of challenging each other to give beyond their ability - to raise the tithe pool, if you will. this morning the emphasis was all about giving from the heart - basically saying dont just give more because you feel like you're supposed to. at the end, they had a time for everyone to pray and make commitments to raise their monthly giving, or give a special one time gift, etc. and it felt like it was the natural end the service was coming to (this certainly isnt the first church to do this sort of thing). but then they did something that definitely was a first for me. the pastor came back up and said we're not quite through yet -- we're putting 4 more baskets in front of the stage [and i'm thinking.. okay, this puts it over the edge of i feel like they just keep asking for more and more money!]. I couldnt have been more off! the pastor says - in these baskets, there's roughly $5,000 in cash... we know the church in Acts is described as always meeting the peoples needs, whatever they were. so, this money is here for you... if you came here today concerned saying 'i dont know how i'm going to pay for gas this week... or groceries...' etc, this is God meeting your need. and so we sang, and some people added money to these baskets, while others took what they needed.

it was truly bizarre! but at the same time, it was hysterically, wonderfully great!
the pastor made the comment 'i know many of you may think this is weird. but we already knew we were weird! please dont let your pride or hesitation get in the way - if you came this morning with a need, this IS your answer! and if no one comes up here and takes this money, i'm gonna start calling people out because i KNOW some of you need it!' and so they did. and it was so incredible.

the beauty of it also was that it was just so stinkin genuine & real... and for the first time in like 2 years, i actually WANT to go back to church next week. because if that's what this church is, where they just put out cash in front b/c they know people just need it, how can you not want to be a part of that?