When the Church Gets it Right

I often focus on the times and instances the church gets it wrong. I cringe when Christians are too pushy, too loud, too legalistic, too obsessed with being right. But today I want to share a story of a small church in the Dominican Republic getting it right.

Teodora

Over the last couple of weeks on the Plant With Purpose blog, we’ve shared the incredible story of Teodora Sánchez, an inspiring woman from the small village of Loma Verde in the Dominican Republic. Teodora is a mother, grandmother, pastor, and empowerer.

Teodora has partnered with Plant With Purpose to engage her community in environmental restoration and economic empowerment. The stories of economic and environmental transformation are powerful on their own, but, as a traditional Jesus-cube-and-revival-evangelism evader, I was more struck by the story of SPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATION taking place in Teodora’s community.

Plant With Purpose has this really cool discipleship philosophy that focuses first and foremost on equipping local churches to meet the needs of their communities. We’ve started a rad project in the Dominican Republic called, “Church, Community, and Change,” where we partner with churches directly and empower them to be an agent of positive change for those around them.

As a pastor, Teodora is constantly looking for new ways to engage both the physical and spiritual needs of those around her. One issue that has plagued Teodora’s community is illiteracy. When Teodora heard about Plant With Purpose's new project, her eyes sparkled with joy at the opportunity to fight illiteracy.

And then she got right to work organizing an entire literacy campaign for her community. Teodora provided the vision; Plant With Purpose helped turn the dream into a reality.

Teodora says, “The Church, Community, and Change pilot was a great blessing from God. More than 30 people attended the literacy classes in January 2012 and more are expected to register throughout the year. Church members serve as the literacy facilitators.”

What a cool idea—church members who can read teaching other members who can’t read.  Awesome.

As the church serves, hope swells: community members build confidence, families become less vulnerable, economic opportunities emerge, and families gain hope for a brighter future.

Could there be a better picture of the church sharing the love of Christ with their community in word and deed?

I know it’s a little shameless self-promoting for Plant With Purpose, but I was touched by this story of the church getting it right and I hope you’ll be encouraged too.

Heard any good stories of the church getting it right lately?

Also, check out the Plant With Purpose blog or website to learn more about how you can get involved in the incredible work of the church around the world. 

*Photo credits: Plant With Purpose

T.S. Tuesday: Why I am Pro-Choice

“If you haven’t the strength to impose your own terms upon life, then you must accept the terms it offers you.” T.S. Eliot

In the spring of 2006, the terms of my life were turned upside down. Life gave me anger. Anger at injustice and poverty and the overall suckiness of a broken world. After what I’d seen, I thought I had no choice.

I thought I had no choice but to wallow, to lash out, to leave the church that was complicit in the complacency that allows injustice.

But in the midst of this anger, I ever-so-painfully learned something. I discovered that faith and hope and love can be chosen. Not only can but must.

I learned this because I was choosing precisely the opposite: not to have faith, not to have hope, not to have love.

It seems like something you can't choose. You're either a glass-is-half-empty or glass-is-half-full type of person and there's nothing you can do about it. But that's not true.

You can choose hope.

I can choose hope.

There’s a part I didn’t choose: the suffering that I witnessed. The policies and politics that have been in place in Latin America long before I was born. The terms the world offers me.

But I can choose my response.

This weekend I had the immense privilege of being a part of something hopeful. I saw the fruit of choosing to love and serve and engage that has been years in the making.

This weekend I helped host an event at my church that highlighted many of the world’s injustices: poverty, environmental degradation, sex trafficking, and the obligation of the church to respond in awareness and compassion.

I heard testimonies of men and women in my church who have chosen to do something. Who have chosen love for our neighbor. Who have chosen faith in the redemptive work of a loving God. Who have chosen hope.

Planting a tree is an act of hope. Making a donation to a poverty fighting organization is an act of hope. Befriending our brothers and sisters who live outside here in San Diego is an act of hope. Delivering furniture to a newly relocated refugee family is an act of hope.

I am grateful to be a part of a church whose heart beats for justice. Whose heart beats for hope.

I can’t even express the humble awe I feel that God would use me to share this hope with others.

That God would use me to give people the chance to get involved in His work of feeding the hungry, healing the sick, and caring for the poor. That, years later, I would be working from within the church to reverse the complacency and disengagement that led me to leave in the first place.

I don’t mean this to sound like I’m tooting my own horn. I type these words in amazement that I am here. That I am leading. That the guilt and pain and anger that once engulfed me has been driven out by love. That the drive for justice and redemption grows stronger not weaker as I choose to engage a broken church and a broken world.

I am grateful for the strength I am given to impose my own hopeful terms upon life.

Most of all, I am grateful for the Hope that chose me.