"I was overwhelmed as I listened to each of the speakers. They spoke intimately and incarnationally about their individual mercy ministries, reflecting some aspect of the fall in their own lives. Whether it was ministry to the poor, special needs, racial inequality or some other form of injustice, each spoke with profound experience in how God continues to  redeem their brokenness through worship and service. The pathway to joy is frequently through darkness of suffering. It struck me that so often the reason we experience paralysis in the pew, lack of deep, abiding joy, and fail to change in our own lives, is because we are asking the wrong questions: “What can I do? How can God use me? How can God use my Church? Where do I (We) begin?”

In the Horse and His boy, the fifth in the Chronicles of Narnia series, Aslan (Jesus who is depicted as a lion) has just told Shasta all the ways in which he has guided his life-taking him through a tumultuous, tearful journey and yet, ultimately, into more joyful times.

'Then it was you who wounded Aravis? . . . But what for?'
'Child,' said the Voice, 'I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one any story but his own.'

Rather than ask what we should do, where we should serve, and how God can use us, we might do better to look at the story which Jesus has already written for each of us.  WE are marked for a purpose. God shaped our past as a means of bringing restoration to others and redeeming our own pain. I am grateful to CEP for providing conferences which enable and equip broken people to worship and serve the Creator, who does all things well, bringing beauty out of brokeness."

-- Curt Moore, MNA Disaster Response Specialist for the Gulf Coast Region

Conference Resources 

Audio:

View the 2010 MNA Special Needs WIC Love Gift video.

Workshop Handouts:

When Helping Hurts - Steve Corbett  (PowerPoint Presentation)
 

Music:

Let Justice Roll Down/With Justice, O Father - (PDF, from Reformed Worship, Issue 95).