Marc's Musings

Well…of the Vineyard Church of Waterville season.

Penny Car Wash August 2007

Click here for the photos. (Izzie was with the kids. THANK YOU IZZIE!)

We got a great location for our last car wash. I bet 100 cars past us today. At least.

And 3 got washed. (4 if you count my van.) And a couple friendly honks. And we did get mentioned on 92Moose, a very popular radio station in the region.

I don’t get why we didn’t get to wash more cars. But that’s probably good, since only 4 adults showed up. (And 7 kids under the age of 8!)

I really didn’t want to do it this morning. I just wanted to be at home and do nothing. But as the pastor, I really don’t have that option anymore. I used to be able to choose not to do things. But about 3 years ago, my decision to take on this church plant caused lots of these “decisions” to already be made.

So I went.

Before I left, Em shared this Scripture from Romans 15 in the Message. (She had no idea I was having a bad attitude.)

Those of us who are strong and able in the faith need to step in and lend a hand to those who falter, and not just do what is most convenient for us. Strength is for service, not status. Each one of us needs to look after the good of the people around us, asking ourselves, “How can I help?”

That’s exactly what Jesus did. He didn’t make it easy for himself by avoiding people’s troubles, but waded right in and helped out.

“and not just do what is most convenient for us. Strength is for service, not status.” THAT’S SO GOOD!

And I’m really glad I did. We had 7 or so truly substantive conversations. They really “got it” when we explained that we believe lots of people in our area have heard of God’s love but rarely get to see it. So we’re a church committed to showing God’s love in practical ways.

And we passed out about 50 packets of VCW seeds.

The kindness in acts like this really messes with people’s heads. It doesn’t compute. It’s a tremendous honor get to be a Jesus ambassador to our city!

[Cool story: We were supposed to do the car wash at a cell phone store that had an outside spigot. On Monday, I got a nudge to check to see if any water came out of the spigot. None did!! When the landlord tried to get it, he found the pipes had been neglected and had been damaged from freezing. So he asked if we could use his store two spaces down. It was a much better location. He even blocked off parking spaces for us to use!]

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