As our family-based approach to ministry is becoming more and more successful, we are constantly defining and redefining just who we call ‘family.’ In it’s purest sense, family is those that are related to our kids at City Light. Parents, Grandparents, siblings, aunts and uncles certainly are seen as family, but at City Light we are finding that the term ‘family’ is far more outreaching than just blood relatives.
Case in point, our Sunday Morning Alternative Service. I was contacted over the summer by my good friend Tony Bilotta about a ministry idea he had concerning a Worship Service for folks that live at the Hope Rescue Mission and any others that would like to join. I was interested, but we already have a Worship Service at 11:00am, just tell them to come then.
But the next thing Tony said got my attention, ” The guys at the mission get kicked out at eight o’clock on Sunday morning. They need a place to go and they are looking for something to eat.” This is when the Holy Spirit kicked in and He gave Tony a plan! We now put a bus at Hope Rescue Mission at 8:00am on Sunday morning. The men leave out of the mission and onto the bus. We get them to the center, they suck down some coffee and they have a service at 9:00am.
Tony conducts that service that concludes just in time for our Community Breakfast at 10:00am. It works perfectly! The service is more than guys from the Mission, others have joined in as well. They have become a community – like family.
So I ask the question, who is our family? It extends to anyone who needs the touch of God in their lives. The family of God goes far beyond the walls of our building, it extends to “whosoever will.”
