Drinks for the Thirsty

After a little persuasion from my pastor, I've recently signed on to coordinate the Outreach Ministry at my church. It's a small church, consisting of about 45-50 regular attenders. The people are few but the hearts are mighty and I'm thrilled to be part of this community.



Anyway, back to my story.... so today was our first outreach effort. After sharing in some conversation, my pastor has adopted a new found passion for the homeless. (This is the population I serve through my day to day job). He asked that I assist in coordinating an effort to assist this population. I kept it simple and we called it Drinks for the Thirsty. As you might expect the objective of this effort was simply to provide cold, refreshing water to the homeless individuals on the streets of Downtown Nashville. So, after an abbreviated church service consisting of a few songs, communion and a brief orientation of what we were going to be doing, we headed downtown.



Let me back up for just a second. Between the "church service" and the "orientation" we provided an opportunity for those not planning to participate in the outreach effort to leave. Not one person stood to leave. Yeah, that's right, we had 100% participation from those attending our service today! Not bad for the first event, huh? That just goes to show the type of people with whom I worship. They were "hungry for an opportunity to serve others" and it was great!



Two hours later, we had given out nearly 600 bottles water to the thirsty. We weren't out to evangelize or recruit others to our church or even to the Lord for that matter. We went out with the intentions of meeting people where they were at and providing them with a basic need that so many of us take for granted. On a 95 degree summer day, who couldn't use a drink of water? We're having a time of sharing next Sunday, so I'll follow up with a few stories later next week.



I don't share this to say, "Look at me. Look at what I did!" I share this to remind anyone who might be reading this to remember that providing the simple things is just another way of meeting people where there at. And to encourage each of you to be aware of the simple things that we take for granted day in and day out.