Small Things Done With Great Love Can Change The World

The above title is etched in stone above the doorway of our church, www.cincyvineyard.com.

But it is more than rocks that cry out from this place.

We have only been going there for a few months now, but I have never seen such traction behind vision in a church.

Last week someone from the church emailed out that she knew a single mum who needed help moving. Yesterday, my hub and boys went to help her move, but ended up maybe being more moved themselves. Less than an hour into the move my hub called me and said they had just finished loading up a three bedroom, two story house and were heading to go unload. He said it brought him to tears. A few minutes later, my 15-year-old son called me so very excited to tell me the same lovely news and to tell me they were in a caravan of about a dozen cars, and that most of the people didn't even know each other, or the mum they were helping, and that it was such a cool thing. I think they were done with the move and home in another hour or so. What a beautiful small thing done with great love, and how many worlds were changed, including my own family's.

I just kept thinking that this is what the Bible speaks of as pure religion, "to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction" (James 1:27).

I have been places where "religion" meant other things, like being "religious", whatever that is. I have been places where people did "religious acts" for people all the while grumbling against them. A casserole can be a lovely thing, but is no substitute for love itself; and casseroles that are pinch-hitting for love taste awful anyway.

Sadly, I know that I have been there, done that, too. Father, forgive me!

But now I am here, and I am learning from these rocks crying out, and from these Christ followers doing small things with great love that change the world, and me. It is a lovely refining fire.