Archive for the ‘Churches Helping Churches’ Category
Haiti Updates
Hey, Mark Driscoll and I are on the phone almost every day putting together the plan to strategically utilize the funds that have been flowing into Churches Helping Churches. Keep in mind that our long term goal is 10,000 churches in America taking up a ‘love offering’ for any war torn, or disaster devastated area the Sunday following the event itself. Beyond that we hope to locate healthy churches reaching into these areas and assist them in their work. (that makes us “churches helping churches helping churches” 
)
We know that our impact upon the church in Haiti has to be powerful and lasting for people to continue to trust us with their relief giving. To that end I have the following updates:
1) Introducing Thomas Kim
I want to introduce you to Thomas Kim, the new Executive Director of Churches Helping Churches. He has great passion for the church. Thomas is a former pastor in a Presbyterian church. He has also delivered expository sermons, given practical seminars, and trained pastors in Cambodia, China, Kenya, Australia, Brazil, Mexico, and the United States. Thomas also scouted church and NGO partnership opportunities internationally. Resulting projects include Bible delivery to the Chinese underground church, North Korean refugee care, and a hope and healing conference for Cambodian youth. In addition to being a pastor, Thomas also formerly worked with Crossing Borders (North Korean refugee shelter) and Joshua Generation (youth workers resource and empowerment).
In addition to ministry, Thomas also brings extensive business experience to this new position. He holds an Engineering degree from the University of Illinois, is an MBA candidate at University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business Administration, and has completed coursework at Fuller Theological Seminary in Organizational Dynamics and International Leadership. His business career has focused on manufacturing engineering and supply chain strategy. And in addition to speaking English, he also has a basic knowledge of Korean and Spanish. We believe that he is God’s provision to lead Churches Helping Churches.
Thomas’ focus in the first 30 days will be to:
• Assess the most urgent church needs in Haiti that CHC can start addressing for immediate impact
• Start working closely with our man on the ground in Haiti, Pastor Jacques
• Develop a response pipeline for the increasing number of request for help and offers for assistance
• Identify initial strategic partnerships within North America
• Determine the organizational requirements needed to grow CHC effectively, efficiently
2) Partnership with Calvary Chapel in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
Bob Coy, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel in Ft. Lauderdale (CCFL), was one of the pastors that encouraged me to pursue this vision for CHC from the beginning. He has more than 20 years of experience working with churches in Haiti. We plan to use some CHC funds to match the gifts that have already made to CCFL for Haiti. These combined funds will be put to use to rebuild a church and an orphanage outside Port-au-Prince. More details of this work and photos will be coming soon.
3) Increased Media Coverage
Now that the focus in Haiti is shifting to rebuilding the country, interest in Churches Helping Churches increases daily. For a more complete look at the media outlets covering this story, check out the Media page on ChurchesHelpingChurches.com.
4) Amazing Response to Volunteer
We hear you! And we are sorry if you have sent an e-mail or not heard back from us about how you can serve with CHC. We are deluged with responses. We are trying to focus on the relief opportunities already in front of us and determining where we can make the most impact. So, I want to ask for your patience with us—and pray for the people and the churches of Haiti. Now that the new Executive Director, Thomas Kim, is on board, you can expect to hear back from us as soon as a plan begins to take shape.
5) Church Planting in Haiti
We are in contact with a number of church planting organizations that want to partner with us to see churches planted in the areas where the Haitian refugees are being relocated to.
Keep us in your prayers, more updates to follow very soon.
James
Haiti Update
Hey, you know that my heart and mind are on the people of Haiti these days. Here’s a five minute update that I gave to our church family at Harvest Bible Chapel last weekend on what God is doing through the ministry of Churches Helping Churches.
Earlier this week, Pastor Mark Driscoll from Mars Hill Church in Seattle and I were in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, to assess the needs of the church in there. Check out this video footage of what we saw. Will you help the church? Go to ChurchesHelpingChurches.com. Just wanted to make sure you are all aware of the mercy initiative being spearheaded by James and Mark Driscoll. It’s called Churches Helping Churches. James and Mark left late last night for Haiti and have just landed in country with a medical and camera team. They hope to capture the story regarding the state of the Haitian church and to report back to the church in North America. It is their hope that Churches Helping Churches will serve as a rallying point for the ongoing relief effort to the local church in Haiti, as well as prepare the North American church to respond quickly to future crises that will inevitably arise around the world. You can read about James’ heart for this new ministry here. Please be in prayer for safety, wisdom, and a clear sense of direction from the Lord as the team ministers in Haiti. If you haven’t done so already, please consider giving to this relief effort. And for the most up to date information follow James on twitter. Gerald I am a pastor and my first and best energies go each day to God’s incredible idea called ‘the church.’ When the crisis hit in Haiti, I praised God for the immediate river of humanitarian aid that began to flow to this devastation, but I found my own heart searching for an answer to this question: Who will help the church? The first reports we have been able to glean are of a ruined 1,500 seat worship center recently dedicated as a lighthouse for the gospel in Port-au-Prince- now just a mangled heap of stone and steel. The second piece of news that reached us was of a smaller church whose place of worship is wrecked and whose pastor and family are dead. The third message that got through the tangled communication grid was from a woman in our church just home from a Haitian orphanage whose founder cannot find his 2 sisters, brother and father. All of this has sounded in my ears like a military drummer leading a processional of pain, and I cannot escape the cadence of a single interrogative, Who will help the church? Hour by hour this week, and even in the quiet moments of sleeplessness, God’s Spirit has been pursuing me with a question I cannot answer: Who will help the church? The waves of humanitarian aid are washing ashore in Haiti and beginning to meet this massive need but I can’t escape my sense that little if any of this medicine will soothe the sores of the suffering church. The country will be rebuilt in time, but so little of that aid will go to my brothers and sisters and I feel I must do what I can to help them. But I really have no idea what that help would or should entail. Galations 6:10 says, “and let us do good to all men, but especially to those who are of the household of faith.” Without question the priority of the ‘church helping the church’ is commanded by Paul in scripture and modeled by Paul in his crisis care for the Corinthians and the church in Jerusalem. If Paul were alive today there is no doubt his first concern as a church planter and leader in the body of Christ would be for the family of God in Haiti. How can the priority Paul lived and taught not be mine as a bible believing Christian? Late Tuesday night and throughout the day on Wednesday I began to pose these same questions to pastors I know and respect. All seemed to resonate with my questions and agree on the priority but were as puzzled as me about what could actually be done. My conversation with Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, was especially helpful, and here is what we have decided: Stay tuned, we are just getting started and hope to have a story to tell very soon.Who Will Help the Church?
Churches Helping Churches
Hey Everyone,Helping the Church in Haiti
Think of it. Right now, as you read this, men are weeping, as their wives wander through the streets of Haiti. Children are crouching in shivering fear as people stand stunned and staring in disbelief at the remains of what they once called their home. The world is racing to help these people in unimaginable crisis, but who will help the church?
