Impacting Your Community

I have the awesome job of leading the team that creates and organizes Group Workcamps and Group Week of Hope all across the United States. While out visiting a couple of our locations for this summer, I got the opportunity to meet two people who are directly impacting their community. Both are doing it in highly effective but very different ways.

Chip is a volunteer youth leader at his local church. After taking his group on mission trips for years, he decided to bring the trip to his hometown. Chip took the extraordinary step of championing the cause of sponsoring an event that would eventually bring nearly 300 people to town and repair the homes of nearly 50 people and families. Chip and his team created a welcoming environment for the 13 youth ministries that participated. They had a DJ playing during check-in the first afternoon, snacks every afternoon and evening, and a concert by Christian artists Satellites & Sirens along with a pig roast midweek. As I talked with Chip you could see the joy in his face, even though I knew he was tired. Regardless of all the hard work and time invested, this was a moment in time that his church and youth ministry will remember for years to come.

 

Todd is the pastor of a church of 40 people in Flint, Michigan. Todd brought three of the youth and another adult from his church for a week of service. He shared with me the heart he has for the people of his church. Todd shared there is 26% unemployment in his city right now. He told stories of ministering with people who are living in tents in other people’s back yards because they’ve lost everything. He spoke about sitting in the chair next to someone in bankruptcy court and helping them through that impossibly difficult process. He even admitted that he’s thinking about somehow going to back to school to get a social work degree because of the types of situations he finds himself in with the people he serves. God is using Todd in powerful ways.

 

Two entirely different situations. Two entirely different people. Two people making an unbelievable impact in the lives of the people God has called them to serve. Blessings Todd and Chip!