The Love of God’s People

It is good and pleasant when God’s people live together in peace!
It is like perfumed oil poured on the priest’s head and running down his beard.
It ran down Aaron’s beard and onto the collar of his robes.
It is like the dew of Mount Hermon falling on the hills of Jerusalem.
There the Lord gives his blessing of life forever.
Psalm 133

My phone rang at 10:10 Saturday night. It was Pastor Lee Bennett, explaining to me that he and the leaders of Northwest Community Church felt nudged by God to give their October 5th offering to Washington Cathedral. It was a complete surprise and I couldn’t stop smiling.

I immediately phoned Pastor Tim with the news, and asked him if it would be okay for Pastor Lee & Sue and NCC’s leaders to present their gift to us in the middle of our 11:00 service. I didn’t know the entire church would be coming!

Our building project has been a challenge. Pastor Tim predicted it would be harder than any of us could foresee, but the difficulty of the journey at every turn has surprised even him. Pastor Naomi captured it beautifully:

I don't think we realized just how tough this project has been for us. We've been putting one foot in front of the other, continuing in our ministries, working endless hours, praying for volunteers to help, enduring delay afterdelay, blessed by those in the congregation who have given every penny they could, refreshed by new people who have joined our vision....but still very, very tired and worn out.

The NCC visit, prayer and gift just brought so many emotions out into the open. My husband Bruce and I were just overwhelmed with emotion. It was hard to stop crying. Thank you, Jesus, for working through this amazing church to encourage and bless us. I can see now that we needed it. I think we had become so numb to the struggle. Thank you for bringing your life back into us. You refreshed us, Lord Jesus. Thank you.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” Matthew 5:3

Could there have been a more soul-stirring way to launch our Beatitudes series? We used this paraphrase at our Sunday 5 service: Those with a deficit of hope experience God's favor as they find themselves within His rule and reign.

While preparing our Sunday 5 homily, an image from my childhood kept coming to mind. I loved to dig trenches around our campsite whenever the hard rain came. In fact, I thought it was one of the best parts of our family camping vacations! The trench was ready to receive water …it was the emptiness that could be filled …the nothing awaiting the something. That seems to be part of what Jesus meant by "poor in spirit".

My wife, Hilary, pointed out that this was exactly what had happened Sunday morning. The people of Northwest Community Church poured in among us and filled Washington Cathedral like rain from heaven. And now the stories of our two churches are intermingled forever.

This is what Pastor Lee said:

We’re from Northwest Community Church. We’ve had our backs against the wall for the last five years, so we know what it means to attempt to fulfill the vision and calling that God has on your life and to find yourself in a place of difficulty and crisis, as it were. God put your church on our hearts. So we want to give you our morning offering as a token of God’s love for you and an affirmation that he sees you. He sees your vision; he knows your hearts. You have no idea how much he loves you. And he does not want you to go forward in fear, but wants you to go forward inconfidence, believing in him – that he’s going to provide …that he’s going to provide. The Lord loves you. You have no idea how much he loves you …how much he is going to provide.

We’re not a really big church – we don’t have a lot of money. So we’re not going make you well with this. But we want to give you this token of God’s grace, and we want to speak over you grace.

II Corinthians 9:8 ‘May God give you all grace.’
…Grace with the City of Redmond …Grace with the Mayor …Grace with the Planning Commission …Grace with the Fire Department …Grace with every agency that walks on this property and determines whether or not you can go forward …Grace in the kind of weather you need to finish your site …Grace in the money you need to get in this building and get on with what God has given you to do. Because it’s not about the building: it’s about you. But you need to get in there! And God be glorified in this. May this be a season of blessing and victory for you of Washington Cathedral, and for you, Tim. May the Lord sustain you at this time. God bless you.

And this was Pastor Tim’s response:

Pastor Lee and Northwest Community Church, I’ve been a student of church history and I don’t remember anything like this since the times of the New Testament. You have blessed us and God has used you as a blessing in this community. So let us return the favor by saying a prayer for you.

Let us all raise our hands as blessing to the people of Northwest Community Church. Lord Jesus, we’re overwhelmed by your grace. We can’t put into words the feeling of being part of a larger kingdom than any of us can imagine. We ask your blessings on Pastor Lee and this great church that has ministered in this community for so many years – on every member and every leader – that you would make your grace overflow in their lives too. That the wall they stand against would fall down just like the walls of Jericho as we believe and know that the gates of hell cannot prevail against you, Jesus. And God, we thank you for this moment of unity with them. We’ll spend the rest of our lives overwhelmed by this historic moment. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Pastor Scott Burnett