There’s an old expression, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Mission Arlington took that to heart. When the mission was founded back in 1986, they were bending over backwards to preach the gospel all over the city. What they soon discovered was that the people they were preaching too had more immediate needs in mind.  It’s hard to concentrate on a spiritual message when you’re worried about how to feed your kids the next day because you are literally that broke. So the mission very quickly started developing new resources to help people. In the name of Jesus they started a food pantry, a clothing ministry, a medical clinic, a furniture ministry, and the list goes on.

Today Mission Arlington not only offers all the resources as a way of helping people in the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex, it also continues to bend over backwards to make sure that people understand the reason for such generosity, namely Jesus. Because His name is the only one that matters.

We raked up over 100 bags of leaves at a small 8-plex apartment.

So, today we spent the morning raking leaves around an apartment unit.  It doesn’t seem like a big deal, unless you happen to be the tenant whose yard is buried under a foot of dead leaves hiding who knows what underneath. Broken glass? A baseball? A chunk of rock or concrete? Plenty of options to hurt yourself with a simple misstep. Or if you’re the apartment owner and you suddenly have a nicer-looking facility because those crazy Christians decided to give you a hand for some strange reason… Might oughta look a little more closely at those people.  Why do they do things like that?

We serve because we have been served.

We bless because we have been blessed.

We love because He first loved us.

In the afternoon we continued to minister through the Rainbow Express program at Addison Park. There we shared the gospel with kids and adults who are coming to the vbs-style service we’re doing this week. Today’s lesson: be prepared. Its hard not to have fun playing with the kids. And spending time with the adults who hang around the fringes can be just as rewarding. Pray we’d continue to be bold in sharing the gospel, and sensitive to the Holy Spirit as well.