According to a recent article in the Courier Journal, the Foster Care and Adoption Program with the Cabinet for Health and Family Services in Louisville, Kentucky is holding monthly Information Meetings for interested families. Applicants can be single, married, widowed or divorced. The applicants must be financially stable (able to cover your own bills) and able to pass a criminal background check. Currently, they are seeking families for teenagers, sibling groups, medically fragile children and more. Contact Megan Mathews Cook, Recruitment Coordinator, via email (megan.mathewscook@ky.gov) or at 502-595-5437 ext. 5562 for meeting dates and times.

Seed is scheduling an interview with Megan and we will post further information as we receive it.  If you are interested in Orphan Care, you can also visit LOCI – Louisville Orphan Care Initiative – a Christian alliance in the Louisville/Southern Indiana region assisting orphans in our local communities.  Visit their website here.

We’ve just launched a new podcast called Inside Sojourn.  It’s free of course, and you can check it out at iTunes and other podcast directories.  Inside Sojourn will feature interviews that will help you get plugged in and celebrate the stories of gospel transformation taking place in Sojourn Community Church.

Check out Inside Sojourn at iTunes HERE

Get the Podcast RSS feed HERE

Of course we already have a podcast dedicated to sharing sermon audios from Sojourn Gathered.  Inside Sojourn will mainly be a short form podcast (7-10 minutes) in interview format.

Check out the first brand new interview recorded exclusively for Inside Sojourn.  In this seven-minute interview, I talk with Community Group Leader Jesse Leightenheimer and group member Kody Gibson.  Jesse recently shared a great story of what Sojourn is all about — community, mission, mercy and gospel transformation — in a blog post right here at seed.sojournchurch.com. For Inside Sojourn, I asked Kody and Jesse a few questions relating to this story:

• Did your community group feel apprehensive about taking a new family in?
• Did you have to work through feelings that this would change the nature of the group so that you weren’t able to care for each other to the same extent?
• What would you say to another group that is wanting to be more missional and outward-focused, but is afraid to take a step?

Learn how this community group practiced what Sojourn preaches about inviting strangers, and about reaching out to those who don’t have a place to call home.

Again, you can get it right now at the Inside Sojourn podcast — visit us on iTunes.

Questions to Ponder

• Do you find it difficult to mobilize your group for mission and to be outward-focused?
• Can you clearly articulate God’s care for the physically and spiritually poor and needy?
• Are you equipped to minister to a stranger who approaches you on Sunday morning in need of food because he doesn’t have the means to provide for his family ?

These questions get to the core of what it is not only to be a Seed Leader, but to be a Christian!  Perhaps you read the above questions with a gnawing sense that you feel completely unequipped to lead your Community Group in service.  That is why we are offering three different training opportunities for you and those in your Community Group who share an interest in loving “the least of these” in Louisville.

Upcoming Training Opportunities

1. Mercy 101 – Starting Sunday, January 17 at the Germantown Campus (time and place TBA) / Starting Sunday, January 31 at East Campus (12 noon – 1:30pm in the auditorium).   This class is the backbone of the Mercy Ministry here at Sojourn.  You will go through the theology of why we even have a mercy ministry and what poverty truly looks like according to the Scriptures.  This class is required for all Seed Leaders. East Campus can sign up for Mercy 101 here.  Germantown Campus will have a link in the next post when the time and place are solidified.
2. Mercy Monday Training – Starting Monday, January 4 (class from 5:30pm-6:30pm in the Listening Room of the 930, going into the neighborhood from 6:30pm-7:30pm). This training will equip you to live out the gospel and will implicate the way you lead.  The first half of our time together will consist of classroom instruction as we go through how to live a gospel-centered life.  Immediately following the class time we will go out into the neighborhood surrounding the 930 to visit widows, the elderly, and our friends in Germantown, putting what was learned into practice.
3. Porterbrook Training – (Starting time TBA, self-study).  This self-study course will be for any one who is interested in living a gopel-informed life at Sojourn.  More information is forthcoming on this training, which will begin in early 2010.

For more information on training opportunities, email jmoss@sojournchurch.com.

Feed and Seed

Germantown Campus:  Sunday, January 10, we will meet from 12:30-2:30pm in the Listening Room for our monthly potluck.  So come and be encouraged as we have a time of reflection and teaching.  Sign up online and bring your best side dish!

East Campus:  Sunday, February 28, we will launch Feed and Seed at the East Campus, which will take place every fourth Sunday of the month.  Sign up here.

Get Involved in Service

Here are some ways you can get involved in service at Sojourn Community Church:

• Consider this list of questions that is designed to spur us on in our walk with Christ as we enter 2010.  The same list appeared on Pastor Mike’s email to you this week, but it truly is worth repeating.
• Spur your Community Group forward by clicking here and reading the Questions for Reflection.  Answer the questions during group in an outward-focused way that encourages the members of your CG to think outside the box.
• Email mercy@sojournchurch.com for the name of someone who is lonely and in need of a visit.  We have several elderly ladies within walking distance of the 930 that would love to see a friendly face during the week.
• Serve the poor every Saturday – Every Saturday afternoon, a group of Sojourners serve meals with Bates Memorial Baptist Church to needy families in Shelby Park neighborhood. Read about it “here”:http://seed.sojournchurch.com/2009/11/10/serve-meals-to-the-poor-every-saturday/at the Seed website and contact David Taliferio for more information at david.taliaferro@summitenergy.com.

May God bless you and may the Spirit move you to bless others during this new year!

About three months ago my wife, Lauren, and I attended our first Mercy Monday.  We weren’t really sure what to expect or what exactly we may be doing.  We ended up prayer walking.  This is something Lauren and I have heard of before, but never actually participated in.  As we exited the 930 I asked Nathan Ivey what prayer walking was.  Did you pray to yourself?  Was it something done through conversation with one another?  Or did you simply pray out loud? As we began walking down Mary Street Nathan instructed my wife and I through example and began praying for the Germantown community.

Immediately we came to a young high school girl and boy who were sitting on the front step of the 930.  We learned that they used to attend the elementary school that once was inhabited the 930, and that they thought of the building as a safe place to hang out to get away from the negativity that is within the surrounding community.   That’s right: Sojourn is seen by Germantown residents as a safe place to hang out.

As we dove deeper into conversation with the two high school-aged kids we were able to learn about their past and current situations. It turns out that one of their families are in great need for a place to live.  As we engaged the 15 minute conversation, God gave us the opportunity to share the gospel with them and invite them out to QUEST on Wednesday nights.  The young girl exchanged phone numbers with my wife and arrangements were made to walk her to the building that next Wednesday.

As we left the front steps and continued down Mary Street I began to pray and ask God begin to open their hearts to the good news of Christ and to allow us to pour into their lives.  That next Wednesday God opened the doors for Lauren and I to meet the young girl’s family and to walk her to QUEST.  I couldn’t believe that inviting someone – an unbeliever, a stranger – to church was so simple.  Strangely, after a few conversations, we weren’t strangers anymore.  My wife and I cared for this young girl.  God warmed our hearts as we longed for her to know Christ.  She too, responded to us with warmth as she acknowledged our newly forming friendship.

Let me fast forward a few months.  The young girl has yet become a believer, but God has provided and is continuing to provide opportunities to surround her and her family in gospel community. We have been able to bring our community group along side of us in this mission, and have been welcomed into the young girl’s home with smiles, great hospitality, love and prayer.  We can see evidence of God’s common grace all throughout this journey are continuing to praying for God’s saving grace to penetrate the lives of this young girl and her family!

Rob Maine, the writer of this blog, is a Sojourn Community Group Leader.  To contact Rob or to join his group on mission, you can reach him by emailing him here.

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. – James 1:27

I have read and heard this verse from James many times but never really stopped to think about what it truly means until recently. The term orphan is not one that we use very often and we certainly wouldn’t apply it to ourselves. We are often told that caring for orphans is considered a demonstration of true sacrificial Christian love because of their inability to reciprocate in any way. The truth is that we were all orphans until we accepted Jesus Christ and became adopted sons and daughters of the most Holy Father. We were unable to give anyone anything of true value or worth. Now that we have accepted Christ we are equipped and able to respond to others with the most important gift of all – the good news that is Jesus Christ.

Church family I want to present you with an opportunity to get involved in the lives of orphans in the Louisville area. The Louisville Orphan Care Initiative (LOCI) is an association of biblically based Christian churches that are working together to build redemptive relationships with orphaned youths and to help Christian families foster and adopt orphaned children.  Through LOCI, there are two primary ways to get involved and develop redemptive relationships with teen girls who need love, compassion, and direction.

Mentoring

One way is providing mentoring to teen girls in foster care that have become pregnant – these women are grown-up babies having babies.

Foster Care

Another is simply providing respite care for foster parents, you would be surprised to know how many foster parents we have right here at Sojourn that could use your help in this way.

We typically think of children when the word orphan is used but we must remember that anyone outside of community with Christ is an orphan. Recently God worked through LOCI to literally bring a 21 year old girl in out of the rain. Anna had been in foster care through most of her life and aged out of the foster program because she was not adopted. The young lady ended up living on the street and spent several nights out in the rain. Through a “serendipitous coincidence” Anna was introduced to a LOCI member. God called the family to adopt her and now Anna has a home where she lives in community with Christians and has the opportunity to see the Gospel lived out everyday. Please check out the following website to get more accounts of Christ’s redemptive love. www.louisvilleorphancare.com

Thank you very much for taking the time to read my very first blog ever. Each week I will bring you new and fresh accounts of God’s mercy and how he is reaching out to orphans through ordinary Christians like you and me.  Please pray for the world’s orphans and for clarity on how you might personally get involved.

Michael Whitten, the author of this blog, is a Sojourn member and is involved with Louisville Orphan Care (LOCI).  You can reach him via email at m0whit06@louisville.edu.

The elders of Sojourn have unfortunate news about another shooting in Shelby Park, one of the neighborhoods surrounding our in-town campus.  A member of our sister church Immanuel Baptist was shot late Sunday evening.  He was rushed to the hospital where he has undergone several major surgeries.  He is badly injured and is currently in a coma.

The pastors of Immanuel and Sojourn ask you to be in prayer for this individual, his family, his church, and the neighborhood.  We are reminded that ministry and mission are not always easy, comfortable or safe.  We faithfully affirm, however, that God remains good, gracious, and in control – promising that He uses all things, the good and the bad, to display his glory and advance his kingdom purposes on earth.

Now is not the time for us as a church to step back from demonstrating our love and care for our in-town neighborhoods.  Rather, we must faithfully seek the peace of our city, love our neighbors and show Shelby Park how God’s people trust and respond in faith to even the most difficult circumstances.

Immanuel and Sojourn invite you to attend a joint Prayer Service on January 6th.  Our churches will unite in prayer, fellowship and a short message will be given from a pastor of each church.  Please join us.

Date:

January 6, 2010

Time and Location:

6:30 pm – 7:00pm – Prayer walk at Shelby Park

7:00pm – 8:30pm – Indoor prayer service at Immanuel Baptist Church

8:30pm – 9:00pm – Fellowship

How do we as the body of Christ see our role as the church in the city?  We are constantly carrying the tension of seeing the city as the city of God that is being restored by the power of the Gospel and will one day be fully restored in the New Creation (Jerusalem—see Rev. 21) and the city of Satan that is now present and in opposition to the city of God.  So when we look at the city we tend to see it in one of four ways:

• We despise the city. Church as fortress. (Forgetting the city as Jerusalem).
• We are the city. Church as mirror. (Forgetting the city as Babylon).
• We use the city. Church as space capsule. (Forgetting the city as battleground).
• We love the city. Church as leaven. Jeremiah 29.

Do you despise the city, only seeing it as a place to turn your nose up at and toward which to fire “evangelistic missiles”?  Do you see the church as a mirror, trying to make the church look as much like the city as possible?  Do you see the church as a space capsule, cloistered from the sinful world outside; a holy huddle safe from the dirtiness of the city?  Or do you see the church as leaven, seeking the welfare of the city, being witness not only by our individual lives, but by the beauty of our communal life?

Jeremiah 29 gives us a beautiful image of God’s people working for the welfare of a city that is not their home.  The Israelites want to return to Jerusalem.  They have their bags packed.  But God speaks through Jeremiah, telling them to dig roots.  He says, “seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.  The Israelites were now citizens of Babylon (whether they liked it or not), but their heart longed to be in Jerusalem.  Christians today are in a very similar situation.  We have one foot in this present age and one foot in the age to come.  We are at the same time citizens of an earthly city and citizens of a heavenly one.  So the church should reflect this dual citizenship in her generosity with money and simplicity of life; in her racial diversity ethnically, economically, and socially; and in the purity of her members.  We are not to despise the city, mimic the city, or use the city—we are to love the city.

So how are you loving the city?  How are you working for the welfare of Louisville?  When is the last time you simply got to know your neighbor—that person in the apartment ten feet from yours that you pass every day and never say a word to?  Have you been living as leaven, seeking to love the city, or have you sought only your own welfare, forgetting that Christ died not only for you, but for your neighbor as well?  Take courage, Christian!  Be bold and seek to love your city by loving your neighbor!

(Adapted from Tim Keller’s A Biblical Theology of the City, http://www.e-n.org.uk/1869-A-biblical-theology-of-the-city.htm).

Louisville Metro Police Department has given some crime tips for the holiday season.

The following excerpt is from Graeme Goldsworthy’s Gospel & Kingdom, which is a book that brings clarity to the unity of both Testaments. As we wrap up our journey through the Old Testament this year and anticipate the New, I found this explanation of good works and grace helpful.  Goldsworthy comments:

The relationship of good works to salvation is essentially the same in both the Old and New Testaments.  In both salvation is by grace, but grace never stands alone without good works.  To put it another way we may say that no-one (in Old or New Testaments) is saved because of good works, but no-one is saved without good works.  This is one aspect of the unity of the two Testaments which makes the Old Testament so applicable to Christians.  The same unity underlines Paul’s use of the exodus situation in 1 Corinthians 10:1-12, which reads:

¹For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. ²They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. ³They all ate the same spiritual food ⁴and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. ⁵Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert.

⁶Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. ⁷Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: “The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in pagan revelry.” ⁸We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did—and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died. ⁹We should not test the Lord, as some of them did—and were killed by snakes. ¹⁰And do not grumble, as some of them did—and were killed by the destroying angel.

¹¹These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come. ¹²So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!

Many individuals who gravitate toward mercy ministry often have a works-based understanding of the gospel.  In other words, many believe that our works or deeds merit favor with God.  Do you believe the statement that “no-one (in Old or New Testaments) is saved because of good works, but no-one is saved without good works?”

Brothers and sisters, the Bible is clear that it is by grace that you have been saved – and this salvation brings about a new heart and a new life that responds to God in obedience to his holy commands (Eph 2:1-10).