Soup Kitchen for the Soul. Renee Crosby

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СКАЧАТЬ my part for the kingdom of God by serving in my church with my spiritual gifts. As I learned to articulate the vast amount of heartfelt knowledge God shared with me while serving in a soup kitchen I have come to do my part in some small way to realign God’s people with the full mission God has set before us.

      This book is about radically new-old ways of doing the gospel. It’s about changing our mindset from being a “come to” church to becoming a “go from” church. The new-old way is about a dual approach to our Christian mission. It’s about serving within the confines of our church walls, and about going and “bringing the Good News to the poor”.

      It’s coming to understand and loving God in a more meaningful and relevant way because we have stopped limiting God and have gone to find Him where He is when we bring the Good News to the poor. That is where He reveals Himself to us in a personal, profound and miraculous way!

      QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

      1. What key people have been influential in igniting or developing your faith walk? It could be several people from a teacher, or a parent, a neighbor, a friend’s parent, a relative, a pastor or a co-worker.

      2. Can you remember a time, place or event when and/or where this Jesus fellow “came alive” for you?

      3. Describe the events surrounding the time when you accepted Jesus as your Savior. Was this the same time as when Jesus became your LORD, or did this develop later?

      4. I ask that you challenge yourself to evaluate if you personally have come to expect God to meet you where you are, or have you experienced what it is like to go and seek God where He is?

      5. What have you come to understand as the mission or missions God has for Christians? Do you believe we should use our spiritual gifts in the church (institution) and are you using them? What about this dual approach to our missions? Do you believe God desires and directs us all to also serve outside of the church walls?

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      WHAT I DIDN’T LEARN ABOUT

       GOD IN CHURCH, I LEARNED

       IN A SOUP KITCHEN

      In that soup kitchen, God revealed to me that I labor not in vain. God showed me a message, a mission for His people in which we lack a connection today. This message is to be shared so that we can learn and grow from it. What I hadn’t yet learned about God in twenty-eight years of my faith walk since accepting Jesus as my Savior, I learned while serving only twenty-four cumulative hours (that’s hours, not years) in a soup kitchen.

      When I stepped out of my comfort zone in fear and apprehension and walked into that soup kitchen, my faith walk changed from being about having God meet me where I was to me meeting God where He was. The experience was a transforming miracle! It changed everything, and I mean everything.

      It changed seeing with my eyes to seeing with my heart. It changed what I see, and where I see it. It changed my relationship with God, with my husband, my children and my friends. It changed my general demeanor with strangers from intimidating at times to always approachable. It changed my outlook, my tone of voice, my posture, my nature, my facial expressions, my wants, my goals, my love for others, my love for God and my soul. These are changes that you can experience too!

      I write to inspire change in the way we do our Christianity and in the hope that we can all connect with God in a way that we all need but may not realize we do, as I didn’t. It’s about connecting with God in a radically new-old way outside of the church walls to see the scriptures come alive with meaning and relevance and power and truth.

      Not only will Christians be able to experience God at a whole new level, but be inspired to engage in works for the Kingdom of God that have seemingly lost their significance in our modern faith walk. How or why part of our Christian works have lost significance isn’t as important as to know who is behind the movement. It is solely the work of the enemy (who I will only refer to as “the enemy” because I don’t believe he is worthy to even be mentioned by name). The enemy has worked toward having us forget some of the most astounding promises of God.

      We are a sinful people, in a sinful world, constantly being bombarded with deceit and lies so deep that I cannot address them in this book. So our focus must be upon reclaiming some promises from God found in the scriptures. I can assure you these promises have not lost their relevance and can be reclaimed to enrich our modern faith walk!

      As we awaken these sleeping promises in our souls, we will then come to evaluate what we can do better as we walk this Christian walk. Within my soup kitchen experience, it seems my soul was awakened, yet was in this groggy phase for a while. I was reacclimating myself with my surroundings and this new heart vision I had, when I remember the moment my soul was awakened completely. While I was in the midst of awakening the experiences of the soup kitchen, one of my pastors asked a question of our congregation that snapped me to attention like that first sip of coffee in the morning.

      He asked a very good question that has significant relevance for the life and purpose of the Body of Christ and our institutional churches. How we answer this question is a good barometer of determining whether we are doing a good job at the missions laid before us for a great and glorious God. The question was:

      “What if the people of ____________________________ (insert your church name here) weren’t here anymore? Would the community around you notice?”

      What a thought! Think about it. Would the community notice? If our answer is anything other than a resounding, absolute “Yes!”, we have work to do.

      Is your church and its people a real, tangible, visible reminder of an invisible God, besides the evidence of walls that make up the building? Are you a visible reminder of an invisible God? We, the Body of Christ, are to be a visible reminder of an invisible God to the world around us like the wedding ring is a visible reminder of an invisible love and commitment in a marriage.

      The scriptural foundations of our Christian experience are carefully packed into a treasure chest that waits to be opened by us to find wonderful treasures inside. In order for us to do our Christianity in radically new-old ways, we must look for the treasures found within the precious stories and lessons given to us by the God-breathed word.

      For about 15,372 hours, or the equivalent of 640 days, or 91 ½ weeks, or 21 months I prayed for the words to articulate the soulinspiring experiences of the soup kitchen. I waited patiently (for once in my life) but with much anticipation, for God to reveal to me how to share those lessons. Finally, God answered my prayers.

      One morning I woke up and the treasure chest was there. God had packed the most wonderful treasures inside to help me share the story of my soup kitchen experience. Within the treasure chest were two kinds of jewels that would allow me in some small way to help Christians live out a more fulfilling life as God had designed.

      These radically new-old ways are found in the scriptures in the form of defining moments and reclaiming forgotten promises. These defining moments and forgotten promises are our legacy and heritage that we have somehow come to leave behind. Reconnecting with them will allow God to define our faith walk, not us.

      The defining moments and forgotten promises found within this book will allow you to know God better. Once you experience these truths for yourself, you will come away with an increased amount of awe for God. These Biblical lessons result in a childlike wonder and awareness of how glorious our God is!

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