Jesus with skin on

I just spent last Tuesday and Wednesday in Melbourne at the World Vision headquarters doing Kids Hope Co-ordinator training. I know, when is this guys going to stop! It was a very enriching couple of days and even though I’ve been involved with Kids Hope for more than 2 years I was enlivened once again by the stories and possibilities of what can happen when a church and a school develop an active relationship through one church member mentoring one child for one hour a week.

The idea of the 2 day training was to equip me with all the resources to train and equip mentors to participate with this ministry. The Kids Hope directors are excited that Blackwood Church of Christ will be the very first church in metropolitan Adelaide to run with the program and they are excited that we will be the example to others in SA about how a successful Kids Hope program is run. Furthermore, if our conversations go well with Hawthorndene Primary School, they will be the very first school and will be the example to all the other schools. What an awesome responsibility and privilege we have to impact the broader metro Adelaide area through such a simple ministry of compassion and love.

Through the stories I kept hearing over and over during this couple of days, I kept hearing the phrase, ‘We have an opportunity to be Jesus with skin on’. This phrase began to grow on me as I realized what it meant to the many schools around Australia to see Christians actually doing something practical to serve their community with no expectation of recognition or bum’s on seats in their churches. The stories kept flowing from story tellers with tears in their eyes as we heard about schools, families, children and yes even churches being transformed through the power of building effective and quality relationships of service. For the churches it was about embracing the opportunity to be Christ in the community. Or as St Francis of Assisi says, ‘to preach the Gospel at all time, but only if necessary use words’. It was about embodying the Good News through their actions.

As I listened to the stories I drifted for a while and began to image Blackwood and Hawthorndene having such stories to tell. Stories where parents, teachers and principals speak with utter amazement about these people from the church who have invested so much into transforming one life and not being able to put their finger on their motivation for it, but knowing that it must be good. And members of our church telling stories with tears in their eyes saying, ‘I had an amazing opportunity to be Jesus with skin on’.

Shalom
Mark