Praise Reports

In my daily Bible reading, my attention was arrested by Luke 5:29,

Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them.

I was caught by Jesus' great love in hanging around with people who want the new life He offers. My wife and I spent an evening talking about how the church can position itself as Jesus does, lovingly among those who need His Good News.

My wife actually took action this week by picking up the phone (in spite of a mounting migraine) and calling folks - both church members and folks on the fringe - to say "hi" and just listen. There were several good conversations - Melissa got to be Christ's presence, graciously spending time at Levi's place.

Then, one of our lay people who has been building a ministry at local nursing homes sent this email:
Hi! I had 4 participants at ***** and 11 at ***** today plus 1 personal visit. The other scheduled ones to visit were either sleeping or playing bingo. The 1 visit I made is actually my third to him. We talked for a bit and I told him about the worship service we have on Tuesdays. He said he is an athiest but he will come and listen...

How wonderful that God has opened an atheist's door to this lay minister. Another chance for the Lord to be at Levi's place.

One more praise report. I asked some of our parish "prayer warriors" to come by and pray for me. They couldn't all come at the same time, so I got two waves of prayer on the same day.

It was a healing and refreshing thing for me to be Levi. I was the one with the need, and I extended an invitation to these prayerful people, who became the gracious presence of Christ spending time with me.