I could not be more pleased with the JIBC response to donate food to James Island Outreach. As you can imagine, during this Covid-19 Pandemic, the needs of the underserved have greatly increased. James Island Outreach is one of our ministry partners. We donate to them financially, with food donations, with volunteers and with leadership. We love what God is doing through them.
James Island Outreach was trying to make sure their clients, everyone who wanted, could have enough groceries for a traditional Thanksgiving Meal. That is a great goal, right? Now, put that together with Pastor Scott’s BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal): he purchased 1000 re-usable grocery bags for us to fill! Wow. I love it. On the first go round, we filled 275 bags. If each bag holds 20 pounds of groceries, my calculations say that is around 5,500 pounds of groceries. That is only 500 pounds short of 3 TONS of groceries! I predict that this Sunday we will see enough groceries to go over the 3 TON mark! Are you kidding me? In the middle of a pandemic, little James Island Baptist Church family gave 3 TONS of groceries? Please hear our Lord saying to you: “I was hungry and you fed me”. James says that pure religion is caring for the widow and the orphan. Well done good and faithful servants, well done. I absolutely love that about our church family.
Now, could I be so bold as to go to the well one more time? I am asking that each of us consider how we might “leverage our influence” to involve others in joining this mission. What do I mean by leveraging your influence? God has placed each of us in different and unique settings where we work, play, live, recreate, etc. Would you ask God if there is a way for you to encourage those in your circle of influence to help collect groceries for the underserved? It is a win-win. Food is collected and more people are aware of the mission of James Island Outreach.
Here are a few examples of using your influence. One family took advantage of a neighborhood chili cook-off to put the JIO Grocery bags out for families to take. Another used their Neighborhood Community System to invite neighbors to stop by and pick up grocery bags. We reached out to a sister church to invite them to join the effort and they gladly accepted. A school teacher found a creative way to challenge students to join in the effort: bring a jar of jelly for extra credit! Maybe your office, your employees, your team would take on the challenge of filling 1 bag, 10 bags or…100 bags!
For sure, if we did not collect one more grocery item, we would still have a major success story! To God be the glory. Well done my friends, well done!
Pastor Tom
