Monday, October 23, 2017

Why Are You Doing This: Motivations, Part Three

Today, I will get straight to the point with a motivation that is simple and personal.

Why are we working on launching Burning Bush Communities?

We are launching BBC because we are compelled to share the gifts we've received from God. More specifically, both Amy and I (John) have been outrageously blessed by people who loved us, shared their lives with us, and poured into us as disciples, many outside of "normal church ministries," and it is our joy to calling to now do the same for others. I don't say that to take away from what we received from established church ministries, but simply to recognize that many of the people who shared what faith in Christ was about with us often did so through unrecognized, un-lucrative (at least in the eyes of our soceity) and "underground" type ministries.

These are the people who:
- sought out the company of confused and angsty middle and high-school kids to share God's love with them
- took crazy college students on retreats, put up with their arrogance, antics and failures,
- patiently listened to the aforementioned students and walked with them joyfully,
- invited us to live and work with them overseas, when we were culturally (and perhaps hygienically   in the case of John) clueless,
- invited us to be a part of an amazing ministry, even when we (John, again!) were putting the pieces of our faith together after walking away,
- ultimately shared in Christ's labor to give birth to us as children of God.

If it seems hyperbolic to say we were "outrageously blessed" I hope the above list provides some justification. The truth is, these were outrageous people, in all the best ways. And now it is our motivation and our joy to take the gift we received from them and pass it on to all the people around us (each of whom is outrageously loved by God!) who are searching, hoping and fighting to see God outside the walls of our established churches.

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