June 13 Meeting - Bringing Light to Darkness

The Lord continued to work in powerful ways through the Body of Christ group this week, bringing prayer warriors together to walk dark streets, providing a witness for youthful offenders in prison and gathering resources to continue work with the poor and homeless.

Before the meeting was under way, people were sharing how they had prayed over drug dealers in southeast Raleigh.

"Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.
They know nothing, they understand nothing. They walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken."
-- Psalms 82:3

As discussions turned to a transitional house on Holmes Street, the group felt led to pray specifically that this building become a beacon of God's light to surrounding neighborhoods. Bill Mitchell and Jeff Duffy received hands-on prayer and commissioning to continue this work. We are also praying for financial assistance so that the nonprofit corporation may assume full ownership of the house and begin pouring needed resources into renovating it. The home has a $150,000 note and may need another $100,000 in renovations, but it has the advantage of already being zoned as a group home.

There will be a meeting on the future of the transitional house on June 24th at 9 a.m. The address is 1027 Holmes Street in Raleigh. For more information, visit http://www.homenc.org

Roberta MacCauley of Catholic Social Ministries reported her position has been continued in the Wake County budget, another clear signal that God is blessing this work. She plans to start immediately working with case workers for the homeless and other advocacy groups to expand support circles as the main arm through which faith communities reach those in need.

Roberta said she hopes to be ready by mid-August to provide large group training in support circles for the homeless.

There was considerable discussion of the success of Oxford House in working with drug and alcohol abusers. Oxford House is able to provide housing for $80 to $90 per week in a self-contained, self-governing setting. While Oxford House is not faith-based, the Body of Christ discussed ways to use the same concept to provide Christian housing to those in need. For more information about Oxford House, you may visit http://www.oxfordhouse.com

Fran Ammons, speaking on behalf of Pardoned by Christ, asked for prayer for more male volunteers as she prepared to minister to youth offenders. God immediately provided an answer to that prayer as Ricky Lee, a former offender who was homeless until recently, agreed to tell his story to the youth offenders this coming Sunday.

Ricky also shared how blessed he had been to stay with a Christian family as he was transitioning from being homeless to renting a place and finding a job. His testimony was so moving that several members of the group wanted to learn more about opening their homes to the homeless and about making that a part of the Support Circles.

The next meeting of the Body of Christ was set for July 11th. It will be held at the same location if the room is available. Otherwise, everyone will be notified of an alternate location.

For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
-- 2 Corinthians 4:5-7

C.S. Lewis on the Body of Christ

A member of the Body of Christ found a devotional by noted theologian C.S. Lewis that seemed to describe perfectly how Christians may work in harmony -- and how they might appear to the outside world:

"Their very voices and faces are different from ours: stronger, quieter, happier, more radiant. They begin where most of us leave off. ... They will not be very like the idea of 'religious people' which you have formed from your general reading.

"They do not draw attention to themselves. You tend to think you are being kind to them when they are really being kind to you. They love you more than other men do, but they need you less. ... They will usually seem to have a lot of time: you will wonder where it comes from.

"When you have recognized one of them, you will recognize the next one much more easily. And I strongly suspect (but how should I know?) that they recognize one another immediately and infallibly, across every barrier of color, sex, class, age and even creeds. In that way, to become holy is rather like joining a secret society. To put it at the very lowest, it must be great FUN."