Serving Our City Day 6

The sixth day, the ministry “project” is over, but ministry was not. I was tired and rushed and wondered if it really mattered that the boys and I attend this funeral. Four of the boys from the Palmetto Square area had an uncle that passed away and I thought it would be good to attend the funeral Saturday afternoon. But after a week of non stop ministry in the city I was tired and rethinking the idea. But with a word of encouragement from my wife the boys and I made it in time for the 2:00 pm funeral at the church whose name was so long I cannot remember it. We were the only white people present in the church building. After the funeral was over we left the building and waited outside to see the boys and their mothers. As the boys came out one of them came over to me with tears streaming down his face and I took him in my arms. He is a 15 year old young man who I have been building a relationship with around the gospel for a year. He allowed me to hold him while he wept for well over two minutes. And as I looked around I realized that this scene was a rare one on Stonewall Street in downtown Brunswick. I with my boys were the only white people in sight and yet there was the evidence of God’s grace in our relationship. He was broken and he let me comfort him in his brokenness as I wept with him and encouraged him from the truth of God’s Word.

Ministry projects, weeks and trips come to an end, but the ministry of the gospel never ends. I went to bed tired Saturday night and woke early Sunday morning to ready myself to preach. One of the boys who participated in our sports camp and arts academy showed up at church this morning. We took him home for dinner after church and he stayed the day and came back with us for evening church along with four other young men including the one I wept with yesterday. Everyday is a day for the display of the glory of God shinning brightly in his grace through the Son. And the lives of his children who are alive in the Son are his to be conduits of that grace.