If you’re focusing on building YOUR orphanage, please stop now. If you’re worried about orphan care everywhere, you have the correct attitude to care for orphans, carry on. It’s not about your kingdom; it’s about THE Kingdom. This applies to orphanages, churches, or any ministry you can mention.
When we first moved to Mexico and started receiving short-term teams, we quickly realized we did not have enough projects, or the right projects, for many of the groups coming down. We began coordinating projects in our town and with other local ministries. Then we did something that we didn’t know was fairly radical at the time. (We still don’t know a whole lot, we knew even less back then.) We started sending teams to other orphanages to serve. For a long time, this concept seemed to confuse people. The other orphanages wondered what our ulterior motives were, the groups didn’t know why we were sending them elsewhere, but we just saw it as spreading the wealth and helping people be as effective as possible. Aren’t we all worried about helping orphans?
We continue to send teams to other orphanages, and many now embrace our efforts to help orphan care wherever it happens. When you step back and look at it, it might be a little weird. It’s like a pastor getting up one Sunday and saying, “We’re kind of crowded, how about some of you visit another church from time to time?” Do we occasionally “lose” a team to another orphanage they visit? Sure, but maybe that’s not a bad thing. We are all called to different ministries, and we connect in different ways. If a group meets a new orphanage and decides they would rather work with them, great, everyone is happy, and we have room for more groups.
You can observe how rare it is for ministries to work together in any town in America; it is SO rare for churches to hang-out with each other. How many intersections have two or three churches that never talk to each other? I understand significant theological differences can come into play, but at the end of the day, if we serve the same God, then why is it so hard to work together? I once had the youth leader of a sizable visiting church ask me whether or not we support and work with smaller orphanages, I responded, “Sure, all the time. Does your church support smaller youth groups in your town?” He got the point I was making and became very quiet, it lead to some great discussions.
A few weeks ago, Strong Tower Ministries, an organization I help lead, coordinated an incredible event. (It wasn’t my project, someone brighter than I did the whole thing) Leaders from seven different human trafficking organizations, most of them working in the Tijuana area, were invited to come together for a weekend. Although they are all fighting human trafficking and helping people caught in the sex trades, most of the leaders had never met each other. Our team threw them together for a weekend in a big house, with a loose agenda, and piles of great food (priorities…). This is a group of people battling at the front lines of ministry, and you could feel the intensity of the people present. Over two days they shared, coordinated efforts, learned from each other, worshiped, and made plans to meet again. It was a weekend that will impact people and ministries for years.
“It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” Harry S Truman
The idea of ministries serving each other is starting to catch on in our area. Our small town in Mexico has about 4000 people and 12 churches. After several meetings lead by one of the churches, this coming Easter most of the churches are “closing for the day.” The collection of churches from our town are renting out a local rodeo stadium, and a combo Easter service is being planned. Worship will be lead by a new group made up from multiple churches, one pastor is taking the sermon, another making an invitation, each pastor will take a portion of the service. Each church is bringing what that can to make the service incredible. The collective body of Christ is coming together as one to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection in the center of the town for all to see. Wouldn’t it be great if this were to happen in towns everywhere?
Jesus spent a great deal of time talking about humble service. Humility isn’t putting yourself down or thinking you’re worthless. Humility is not thinking about yourself at all. If we put aside our desire to look better to others or to be in charge, if we didn’t care about building our own kingdoms, the church would look very different. Whose glory are you seeking? It’s a question we should ask ourselves daily.
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DJ from the orphanage 