Friday, December 5, 2014

Jesus, Beds and Serving Our Neighbors

Two thousand years ago Jesus and his parents had no place to sleep.  There was no bed for them.  

Two thousand years later, the number one request we get for help at Zion is for beds.  People arriving in our city may have a roof to sleep under but they don’t have a bed to sleep on.  There are entire apartment complexes we visit where almost every apartment has no beds.   

We believe we’re called to change that.  If Jesus disguises himself as the very least of these, perhaps we can at least serve him by giving him a bed to sleep on.  So Zion has partnered with Midwest Sleep in order to provide beds for people in need in our community.  Thanks to a generous donation, we’re able to provide 60 single beds to people who don’t have any.  Thanks to  Midwest Sleep we are able to purchase the beds at cost.  We’ve been taking names for weeks and done our best to verify the need.  Verification has been easy as we know many of these families already and can attest to their need. 

Here’s the plan:  
  • the beds will be delivered to the Johnston Public Schools dock the week of December 15.  (Thank you, Johnston Schools for the use of your dock!) 
  • From the dock we’ll move the beds to Zion and store them in the cafeteria sometime after the STARS Christmas party on December 17.  
  • Then, on December 21, we’ll dismiss early from our worship services and ask the congregation to help us pray for, load, and deliver the beds and also about 150 Christmas food baskets to people in our community. 
  • In addition, many of the beds and box springs will be wrapped in bed bug protective wraps in order to extend their usefulness and provide safe and comfortable rest for many years to come.  

Everyone is welcome to come and join us on Sunday, December 21, for the big bed lift.  In addition, if you’re in need of a bed, please contact Zion’s Parish Nurse, Sherilyn Rittgers at 515.270.8142.  

It’s the season of Advent when we focus on getting ready for the coming of King Jesus.  What better way for him to find us than doing good for those he came to save.  


Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Our Story

This story began over five years ago with a question:  “If our church closed, would anyone miss us?”  We asked our board members to consider the question.  The answer they reached was, “no.”  After all, they concluded, our members would simply go to other churches.  It seemed a shame that we were so unconnected with our neighborhood that no one would miss us if we weren’t here.  It seemed that maybe Jesus Himself would want his church to have a better relationship with those around us. 

So we embarked on a project.  Our lead pastor would visit every neighbor who lived around the church.  He would try to meet them, ask them how Zion Church could bless them, find out if we were being a good neighbor, and give them information about the church and a $25 gift card to a new local restaurant.  He visited 30 some houses.  People were polite, impressed with the gift, but really didn’t have much to say about how the church could bless them. 

We broadened the project to include local businesses and institutions.  The pastor went to the local mall which is only a few blocks away.  “How can the church bless you?”, he asked the general manager.  Short of being willing to work together, there wasn’t anything we could do.  Then the pastor went to the VA Hospital down the street.  “How can the church bless you?,” he asked.  They wanted volunteers.  Of course, since they are a federal institution, the application process is very involved.  We advertised the need but we are still waiting for our first volunteer from the church.
 
A prayer changed everything.  One evening, sitting in the backyard and reading the Bible, our pastor cried out to the Lord in frustration.  “What kind of a church do you want us to be?”  “ A banquet,”  came the clear reply.  “What kind of banquet?”   “Like Luke 14,” he heard.  And then his mind was filled with images of a local apartment complex.  

Turning to Luke 14 we find the parable of the great banquet.  There were three things that leapt out at us immediately when we read this chapter.  1.) Jesus says, “When you give a banquet, don’t invite those who can invite you back.  Invite those who can never repay you.”  So we determined that Jesus wanted us to focus first and foremost on the very least, those who couldn’t repay us in any way for serving them.  2.) The guests who were invited, the intended recipients of God’s favor, didn’t come and sent their excuses.  We believe that many in the Church today don’t realize that they are saved for a purpose.  That purpose is to serve the Lord who saved us by serving others.  3.) God instructs his servants to go to the alleyways and the country roads and compel the poor and the lame and the lost to come to the banquet.  We understand this to mean that the church is to go out and seek, not stay home and wait for people to come to us.  Zion’s mission statement became, “Jesus says, ‘Go!’”

So we packed up a luncheon feast for 150 people, some games and crafts for the kids and went to the Douglas Terrace Apartments.  We met a lot of kids and found out that most of the people living in this complex were recent refugees.  Mostly from Burma.  We came back monthly for four months, bringing food, games, bounce houses, whatever we could think of, and we began learning names and building relationships.
 
By the fall it began to occur to us that perhaps we could invite these kids to our Wednesday night tutoring program.  That program had 4 kids in it.  Overnight it multiplied to 40.  Then we needed to find more innovative ways to transport kids, feed kids, and provide the tutoring they needed in a fun atmosphere.  Today 300 kids participate.

Next stop for us was the local elementary school.  “How can the church bless you?”  Naturally, we expected a polite “no thank you.”  But we were surprised.  The school was having trouble getting children in the English Language Learner (ELL) program come to school in the cold and snowy weather.  The kids lived just beyond the edge of the busing zone and didn’t qualify to ride the bus.  Could the church help?  We asked the congregation and ten people volunteered to drive vans borrowed from local churches and ministries.  Each school day we began transporting 14 children to school and back.  The congregation stepped forward and we bought our first van.  The local school asked the local church for help and, praise God, we worked together to meet the need and the get the kids to school.  Turns out that the kids who needed rides lived in the apartment complexes at which we were doing outreaches.  Today we transport over 40 kids every school day.

Next, we went to some local restaurants.  “How can the church bless you?” The Muslim owner of restaurant was well connected with his Iraqi refugee community.  “We need furniture,”  he replied.  The call went out to the church and furniture started to fill the lobby.  Just as quickly it went out to families from Iraq, Burma, and other places.  Friendships were made.  Jesus was honored.  The church became the go to place for help with everything from job applications to utilities to translation and even help for resolving disputes.  Furniture now comes from all over the city as word about the need gets out.
 
The interest in Jesus by some of our new friends has caused us to start an Arabic language service on Sundays.  Today that service is led by a lay pastor from Iraq and our Muslim friends feel welcome and comfortable coming to the church with questions and needs and some are choosing to follow Jesus and being baptized.  As an outgrowth of this ministry, we’ve help charter a new 501(C)3 organization called the Iraqi Community in Iowa in order to help meet the needs of this community.

Our visits took us to the local mosque.  “How can the Church bless you?”  Now our pastor and the imam regularly meet for coffee and conversation and we are committed to working together to make our community a better place for all.  The imam and some of his congregation join us each year at church for Christmas Eve dinner.  We in turn are invited to dinner during Ramadan.  We work together yearly on a food drive for needy veterans and also work together to help refugees in Syria and Jordan.  

Each Christmas, people in the church want to bless our new friends in the community with Christmas presents and food baskets.  

There was a growing need for clothes among the children and parents that were coming to the church for help.  So a clothes closet was started.  Today, that clothes closet goes “mobile” several times a year with a borrowed trailer that takes the clothes to places in our community where people are in need.  Our lobby is full of bins for collecting clothes and household items for anyone in our community that needs help. 


Because of our work in the community, Zion was approached by the Mizo, an ethnic group from Burma who wanted a church and a pastor to help them.  Zion obliged and today the 1:00 Sunday Mizo service is vibrant and growing and our Mizo brothers and sisters work side by side with us on projects and cleaning the church, exchanging preachers and choirs, sharing meals and going through life together as one church.  Today, after about a year of paperwork, we have a Mizo speaking pastor from Burma on staff.  

Recently, a group of Swahili and Kinyamulenge speaking Congolese joined Zion together with their pastor.  That gave birth to the 10:30 a.m. Swahili service.  We are working on being one church together and frequently worship and serve together.

Sunday School is now an integrated experience, with Mizo kids and kids from the neighborhood joining us weekly to learn about Jesus.  A whole team of people joined together to provide transportation and to receive the kids when they arrive and depart.
Our congregation caught the spirit of what God was doing and things like our Street Outreach, which delivers meals to the city’s homeless and prays with them began to grown.  Showers that were built at Zion to host retreats are now used by the homeless so that they can refresh themselves before worship.  

We had a long tradition of Wednesday night meals at our church.  Now those meals feed hundreds of people and have provided an avenue for people from our community to come and eat and be known.  We are exploring how to become a food pantry specializing in Asian items because of the requests we receive.  

Our building has become a center for our community.  Zion is part of our city’s emergency management plans and serves as a shelter during times of disaster or extreme heat or cold.  We host many community organizations, events, and summer camps.

In the last three years, a well regarded local preschool, lost their space and Zion was able to welcome them into our facility without cost.   Today, Westside Early Education helps the church by providing room for non-English speaking preschoolers to begin learning English and relating to the classroom environment.  

A few years ago we began offering ESL classes taught by volunteers.  The classes became so large we needed help to run them and today we partner with the Iowa International Center to provided trained ESL teachers.  

We’ve learned so much over the last years.  We’ve learned that the church can become essential to the neighborhood simply by going out into the community and finding a way to serve people who can’t ever pay you back.  Simply put, Jesus told us to  “go.”  When we are obedient and go, the way the world looks at the church changes.
We’ve also learned that we are a part of something bigger than ourselves.  Some of the things we’ve been led to do would never have happened without the help of other churches and ministries and even secular organizations.  What we learned was that when we work with others, Jesus gets the glory and miraculous things are done in his name.  

We’ve learned that we don’t have to be afraid to simply ask, “How can the church bless you?”  Sure, some will send us away, but others are dying for our help.  They are looking for Christ but how will he come to them if we, his body, don’t bring him?  We never thought the local school would consider partnering with us.  But there are wonderful partnerships to be made out there if we are willing to humble ourselves and serve on terms other than our own.  

We also want everyone to understand a few things.  We believe that Jesus has called us to minister everywhere, wherever we are, not just in this neighborhood.  But you have to start somewhere. And we encourage all our members to be open to the ministry that Jesus is calling you to right where you are. We believe that our ministry is to everyone, not just immigrants, but that’s how it started for us and that’s what Jesus has put in front of us in these days.  A few years from now, as our immigrant friends become part of the church and our neighborhood, our ministry focus will undoubtedly change as Jesus calls us forward into new adventures and journeys.  We believe that our ministry is not just local.  In other words, we still care about the rest of the world.  We still seek to support the people and things that God is doing globally.  We are actively involved in ministry in Tanzania, South Sudan, Cambodia, Myanmar and Jordan and for praying for the Church in persecution throughout the world.

Four years after beginning our project, the results, to us, are nothing short of miraculous.  We believe that we have found the ministry Jesus wants for us in this place at this time.  And, amazingly, new opportunities keep on presenting themselves.  The local middle school and high school are now asking for help in transporting students.  We could easily double our student transportation.  We were able to provide over 500 books to the elementary school, one for every student, just before Christmas.  The parents of the children, regardless of their ability to pay for books themselves, have expressed gratitude that the local church cares about their children.  The school has also asked us to provide weekend meals for students that the school is concerned have no food when they are not at school.  We are currently providing 30+  students with food each weekend. 

Zion has turned extra land on our campus into community gardens, especially for immigrants who miss being on the land and working the soil.  Today there are 60 plots for gardeners.  The idea came about at a neighborhood meeting and will involve a partnership between the city, the church and Lutheran Services, a social service organization.
 
We continue to offer “life skills” classes including things like “how to manage money,” “how to go to the pharmacy and what medicines to buy when your children are sick,” “how to buy a house,” and others   These classes are an opportunity for partnership between the church and other members of our community.  We understand that the church should play a role for good in the transition of our neighborhood as the original residents from the post war era move out and first time home buyers from other places move in. 

Zion hosts an Iowa Career Access Point computer.  This means that the church can help people find available jobs.  We provide volunteers from the congregation to help people use it.  

Today, Zion is a church that worships in four languages and prays in over a dozen.  Together we hope to be one church that loves and serves the Lord Jesus together. 


What’s next?  Only God knows.  We continue to pray we will be faithful in responding to his call.  What’s next for you?  Will you find your story in our story?  We invite you to come along and be part of the adventure.  

Monday, March 3, 2014

Are We Crazy?



 Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat.  When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.” Mark 3:20

How important is it to you that you be seen by others as normal?

Are you willing to cross the line of other people’s perceptions from normal to crazy?

People thought Jesus was crazy.  His own family thought he had completely lost it.  Which is really odd when you consider that they knew something about the miraculous circumstances of his birth and the expectations of his life’s work.  

Sometimes we give a pass to slightly crazy, successful, creative, innovative people like Jesus because we think that maybe craziness is the cost of being truly unique.  

But Jesus calls us to follow him.  He calls us to be seen as crazy too.  He calls us to become like him.  He calls us to let him be the pattern for who we are and how we live our lives and relate to others.  He calls us to be crazy in the eyes of the world.  

It’s crazy to invite a bunch of people you don’t know and who aren’t even like you into your space and offer to go through life with them.  But that’s what Jesus does. 

It’s crazy to gather more people together for an evening’s conversation than you can possibly feed with the food you have on hand.  But that’s what Jesus does. 

It’s crazy to wash the feet of the people who betray you with a kiss.  But that’s what Jesus does. 

It’s crazy to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.  But that’s what Jesus does. 

It’s crazy to think that people from different classes, ethnicities, abilities and generations could praise God together and go through life together.  But that’s what Jesus believes. 

It’s crazy to give away things you could use to help yourself and the people you want to impress and thereby improve your own position.  But that’s what Jesus teaches.  

It’s crazy to keep coming up with new ways to help people and minister to them when you aren’t even sure you can survive another month.  But that’s what Jesus teaches us to do.  


I hope people think our congregation is crazy.  Crazy like Jesus.  Our constant temptation is the temptation to be normal in the eyes of the world.  But keeping things normal won’t change the world and show it Jesus.  The true ambition of everyone who follows Jesus is to be crazy like he is.    

Are We Crazy?



 Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat.  When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.” Mark 3:20

How important is it to you that you be seen by others as normal?

Are you willing to cross the line of other people’s perceptions from normal to crazy?

People thought Jesus was crazy.  His own family thought he had completely lost it.  Which is really odd when you consider that they knew something about the miraculous circumstances of his birth and the expectations of his life’s work.  

Sometimes we give a pass to slightly crazy, successful, creative, innovative people like Jesus because we think that maybe craziness is the cost of being truly unique.  

But Jesus calls us to follow him.  He calls us to be seen as crazy too.  He calls us to become like him.  He calls us to let him be the pattern for who we are and how we live our lives and relate to others.  He calls us to be crazy in the eyes of the world.  

It’s crazy to invite a bunch of people you don’t know and who aren’t even like you into your space and offer to go through life with them.  But that’s what Jesus does. 

It’s crazy to gather more people together for an evening’s conversation than you can possibly feed with the food you have on hand.  But that’s what Jesus does. 

It’s crazy to wash the feet of the people who betray you with a kiss.  But that’s what Jesus does. 

It’s crazy to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.  But that’s what Jesus does. 

It’s crazy to think that people from different classes, ethnicities, abilities and generations could praise God together and go through life together.  But that’s what Jesus believes. 

It’s crazy to give away things you could use to help yourself and the people you want to impress and thereby improve your own position.  But that’s what Jesus teaches.  

It’s crazy to keep coming up with new ways to help people and minister to them when you aren’t even sure you can survive another month.  But that’s what Jesus teaches us to do.  


I hope people think our congregation is crazy.  Crazy like Jesus.  Our constant temptation is the temptation to be normal in the eyes of the world.  But keeping things normal won’t change the world and show it Jesus.  The true ambition of everyone who follows Jesus is to be crazy like he is.    

Saturday, February 1, 2014

Prayer for Zion Church

Jesus, Lord of the Church, give to the preacher grace to preach your word in truth despite my brokenness.  We pray that in everything, you would increase and we would decrease.  

As a church we ask for your forgiveness and your healing for our past and present sins.  Especially for forgiveness where we have not embodied you, the Lord of the Church, and have been a scandal or a stumbling block for those who seek to believe.  Forgive us for not giving to others the same grace and mercy you have shown to us, even to the point of death on a cross for us.  Forgive us that at times, we are apt to make our worship more about what we like than about giving you the praise and glory and honor and unity that are rightly do to you, our Lord, God and King.  

Restore us, we pray and equip us to better serve you in everything we do and in every situation into which you send us daily.  Move us to forgive as we have been forgiven and to be merciful as you have shown us mercy.  

Give us a passion to glorify you, Lord, in every aspect of what we do together and independently.  Teach us to be
a people focused on you and to desire you above everything else.  Help us to do what you want, to love what you love, to desire what you desire.  Make us to grow in love for you and for others.  Teach us to be patient, make us wise through your word, and strengthen us to be dauntless and courageous in doing what is right and pleases you.

May Zion Church be the catalyst for an epidemic of righteousness in this city.  May your word move us mightily into action in such a way that hearts and lives and eternities in this city are changed.  We pray especially that the special relationships with the Muslim community you have given us would lead many to follow you.  

May we be a church together where the lonely find community, the outcasts find  acceptance and understanding, the sick find healing, the addicted and the prisoners find true and lasting freedom, where the hungry are fed, the needy are clothed, the homeless find a home, and the thirsty find satisfying drink.  Let us be a place where streams of living waters flow forth and water a dry and thirsty land.  

We are a Church of many people:  People from Iowa and elsewhere in America, from Burma and Iraq, Congo and Liberia, South Sudan and other places.  We are people of every generation, station, and ability.  We pray in many languages and many ways but we seek our unity in you, Jesus.  Grant us grace to overcome all that divides us and make out of many, one holy people, a church of priests to serve our God.

We ask for the unity of all the congregations in our city that the unbelieving world would see that there is only one church in Des Moines and that that church belongs to Jesus and is truly the enfleshment of his body.  

Bless and keep our elected leaders and those who have authority over us in our nation, state, county and city.  Inform and guide their decisions by your mighty hand and may the laws they pass be for the good of all.  May justice and mercy be our goal and may righteousness and peace be the result.  

We pray that you meet all our needs.  Please give us neither too much nor too little so that we can pay our bills and help the poor.  Move us to give with kind and generous hearts so that people might see you as kind and generous.  Raise up leaders and helpers among us to do the work you have set before us. 

May our children grow up to love and serve you.  May parents lead their children to godliness and holiness.  Be pleased to fill all of us with your Holy Spirit and may signs and wonders be seen every day among us.

May we embody, you, Jesus, may we truly be your body.  May the people of Zion truly embody your grace and forgiveness and redemption.  May we be bold proclaimers of your word, your will, your way.  May we be doers as well as hearers of your word.  


All these things we pray in the matchless and mighty name of Jesus of Nazareth, Christ, Messiah, Lord of all.  Amen. 

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Welcome to 2014 at Zion Church

Welcome 2014!  Welcome to 2014 at Zion Church!

This promises to be one of the most exciting years in the history of our church.  God is on the move and many miraculous and wonderful things are happening right before our eyes.

The most obvious is the fulfillment of Psalm 99:2, which says, “Great is the Lord in Zion
 he is exalted over all the nations.”  This year Zion truly becomes the place “where nations worship” as we become a church that worships weekly in four languages and prays in over ten.  Beginning February 2, Zion will add a Swahili service concurrent with our English 10:30 a.m. service on Sunday mornings.  The new Swahili service will be led by Pastor Gakunzi Ntwieri with whom we’ve been sharing fellowship and worship for over a year.  Every third Sunday the Swahili and English services will worship together.  We believe that after a year or two of keeping this schedule, the two services will merge into one.  And that is really exciting.  

One of the things that makes Zion different is our commitment to be one church together and not four separate groups sharing space and expenses.  The vision we have been given by God is that our future is not in separate services by language, but in united services where people from every imaginable background and generation and ability can worship the Lord as a single body together.  We believe this brings joy to our Mutual Master, Jesus Christ, and is a fulfillment of his prayer that we “should be one” as he and the Father are one.  

Our biggest challenge as a church is to find ways to share life and worship together as a united body.  We know it is not an easy task to bring so many different ethnicities together but we believe that He whom we love and all have in common is greater than any of the multitude of things that divide us.  We believe that our diversity makes us stronger, not weaker, and that it is “for such a time as this” that God placed us all here, to be a witness to the unifying power of the gospel.  

Greater than any challenge we face are the many opportunities that we’ve been given as a church to share Christ our Savior with the nations in our neighborhood and with the poor and the homeless and those in need.  We never run out of opportunities to share the love of Jesus with world around us.  Almost every day we have a new door open to us into the lives of families and individuals and even entire communities.  

One of the greatest blessings about being a part of the Zion Church community is that our families are all on a mission together.  Every day at Zion is like a mission trip and you don’t even have to leave your zip code.  Our children are taught about Christ in the same room as children who have never heard of him and this leads to interesting and exciting conversations.  All our events occur in the context of a Christian faith that is global.  You can’t be at Zion long before you realize that you’re part of world-wide Christianity.  When a bomb goes off in Baghdad, we feel it.  When a rebellion happens in South Sudan, we know people affected.  We believe that this perception of the church as more than the local congregation causes our faith to grow and gives us a perspective on what God is doing in the whole world.  

Zion has been uniquely positioned in our community to bring people and tribes and nations together.  We are virtually across the street from Hoover High School, the most diverse school in our state, with some 30 languages spoken.  We straddle the Lower Beaver and Meredith Drive neighborhoods, both of which are home to an increasing number of first time home buyers who were not born in the USA.  Lower Beaver is also home to a number of apartment complexes favored by resettled refugees.  This positioning has caused us to respond to the needs in our neighborhoods with a clothes closet, food pantry, furniture ministry and fueled educational, transportation and tutoring ministries.  

2014 promises to continue to call us to other parts of the world, as well.  Looks like we’re being called to help Syrian refugees in Jordan, build an orphan school in Rwanda, continue support and aid to communities in Tanzania and go to a number of other spots that our community members feel led by the Spirit of God to go on short term mission trips.  

We believe that these extraordinary opportunities come about because of the Word of God which calls us relentlessly to follow Jesus into the lives of other people.  We believe that the essence of discipleship is living daily with Jesus and letting him lead you into what he desires to accomplish in you and through you.  By serving others we are serving him.  By serving we grow spiritually and are brought back to the Word of God for nourishment and support and then through that same Word, sent back out to serve the least for the sake of the Greatest Name.  We believe that such a way of life, lived out together in a very diverse church community, will help our young find their own relationship with Christ and choose to follow him.  

Finally, 2014 provides an amazing opportunity for us to pray.  We didn’t choose this mission that God has us on, he sent it to us through prayer.  As we continue to seek out the Lord and his will for us together at Zion through prayer, we know that he who is faithful will continue to change and transform us to be more like him.  Through prayer we also express our gratitude to him who makes all things new, including us, for sharing his ministry with us.  It is the most exciting thing in the whole world to be a part of God’s plan. 


Thanks for reading.  God bless you.  May the life and love and peace and joy of knowing Christ and the power of his resurrection, bless you and give you daily grace to share.  PJ