All Things New

I spent a good part of last week with my wife and the ladies she works with at Perpetual Help Home at the Christian Community Development Association Conference in New Orleans.  Christian Community Development Association (CCDA) is an organization of ministries that seek to help the disadvantaged by giving a hand up not a hand out. 

Most of the over one thousand attendants were young Millennial generation Christians who are passionate about Jesus and ready to change the world.  They don't always look or dress like your average Christian conference attendees.  I saw more dreadlocks and piercings than at any other gathering of believers of which I have been a part.  They were from all over the country and some from other countries. They are incredibly ethnically diverse.

I heard a business man from China tell how he was using his new found wealth from a successful business venture to support mission work around the world.  Imagine that - the Chinese are now sending out money for missions.  I heard former Perpetual resident Sara Waters tell her story of restoration from addiction.  I think everyone there for that session cried.  I heard some amazing stories of what God is doing in some pretty hopeless situations.

It was an incredibly renewing experience.  It gives an old Baby Boomer like me a deep hope for the future to see all these young, creative, energetic Christians so eager and earnest to bring the hope of Jesus to people in ways and through ministries I would never have dreamed up.

On top of all that, I found New Orleans cleaner and more restored than I imagined it would be.  I will be honest, the only other time I was in New Orleans in 1990, I was not impressed.  This time despite my hesitancy, I found myself appreciating all the things I could tell had been done since Katrina.  The city has been renewed.

I also have to be honest that it still has its seedy side.  A walk down a portion of Bourbon Street before noon one day still caused me to have a hard time of knowing where to look. Every direction I turned I thought, "OH, can't look there."  I think Bourbon Street is worse, not better.  It did not flood in Katrina.  What would it look like now if it had?  I don't know.

I do know I came home with an awe of God's renewing power in people through generations, of His ability to change people's lives and  of His ability to change a community in ruin.  He really can "make all things new."  Even me.  Even you.

For the journey...

Tim