Out of the Box Kinna Guy

Exactly two Weeks from today I'll set off on one of the most amazing adventures/trips/experiences in my life.

Mardi Gras 2008.

Before you go all judgmental old school on me...just give it a chance.

Central Bible College, my school, is taking a team of 30some students to do outreach ministry at Mardi Gras in New Orleans. We are working with Evangelist Wayne Northrup, and the organization Answering the Cries Outreach. We are aware that this is something that many of us have never experienced, but yet are thrilled at the tremendous challenge set before us.

These people are our own age...college students just like us. Yet they'll be drinking and participating in sexual activities almost 24/7. We however are going to simply be their friends. Talk with them. Let them know we care about their lives.

I have faced immense opposition about this trip from family, friends, even others here at CBC... but no matter what, SOMEONE HAS TO GO. These people need God to intervene in their lives just as bad as the little african babies in orphanages in Africa.

We send missionaries out around the world to "reach the lost". We ordain and license pastors to pastor great churches in America to reach the lost. But when someone thinks outside the box of Traditional Ministry, many christians flip. Mardi Gras participants deserve to have someone sent to them too. It might as well be me. I'm nothing more than those missionaries sent to Africa, Asia, England, Brazil, Honduras, or Sri Lanka...and they are nothing more than me. We are all sinners who were once caught up in the world. We were deep in sin too... but God sent someone to us in the midst of our sin.

God is sending a group of people to these sinners who are deep in sin. There's a correlation there...but many christians fail to see it that way. It's out of their box, out of their comfort zone, and not according to tradition.

"God is an out of the box kinna guy". That's my new saying. He has to be out of the box in order to have the ability to have such vast relationships with such a vast array of people (i.e. every person on the face of the earth). His method of ministry was out of the box. We went to the sinners...where they were at. He meant them right where they were, no matter what.

So here's to a great week at Mardi Gras... being "christ-like" or "like-Christ"... out of the box.
He's out of the box...to be like him... we are out of the box.