As many of you know, I graduated from seminary last May after spending the previous eight years in school full-time while serving a church on a part time basis. Those eight years kept me busy and totally reliant on God’s grace, which for me was seen through the never ending prayers and love from my family and friends. After my graduation, I was so excited to finally to be able to serve my church on a full-time basis and hopefully gradually get settled in a somewhat normal routine.
I have been blessed in so many ways by my church family as we have journeyed together on the path called ministry. We have done some wonderful things together in service to God and our community and I look forward to the years to come in our service together. But even saying that, I have noticed something missing in my life. After some prayer and what I called “God-incidences,” I believe I have come up with an answer and I believe that answer is the absence of a “spiritual challenge.”
You see while I was in school. I always had some people to count on to challenge me whether it had my professors or fellow students (this was especially true for me in my three years in seminary at Emory University). All of the work I did in those classes always seemed to be challenging me in some form or fashion in its application toward my future in ministry. Now that I have graduated, I still have some challenges but nothing on the caliber of what I have experienced in the past. So a couple of months ago, I began to look and recently I believed that I have found at least the latest challenge for me.
A fellow United Methodist pastor in my district mentioned something about getting involved with an organization called “Stop Hunger Now.” I first heard of this organization when the annual conference I am a member of packaged over 220,000 meals for use and distribution around the world. Hundreds of members of the annual conference donated their time measuring and packaging various ingredients together which created a ready to cook meal for six. This meal is mainly made up of rice but is a well balanced one with all of the necessary vitamins and nutrients necessary to meet the daily requirements for any individual.
While discussing with my fellow pastor about his interest in Stop Hunger Now, he mentioned that he and another pastor were discussing ways to raise the funds necessary to plan a packaging event for their respective communities. Each event costs a minimum of $2500, which will purchase the necessary items and materials needed to package 10,000 meals. One of their ideas on how to raise funds spoke directly to my heart. With the season of Lent approaching in the next several weeks, their idea was that they would eat only the packaged meals for their food intake during the forty days of Lent. To bring awareness to the events, they were going to ask their churches and friends to help sponsor them while they were on their packaged meal-fast. Since it cost $2500. to sponsor a packaging an event, that means it would cost a little more than $60. per day during Lent to accomplish our task.
After hearing of their original plan and then later subsequent discussions, another pastor and I have decided to join in with the first two pastors in raising money and awareness for Stop Hunger Now. This means for me that during the period of Lent I will be eating the same packaged food which is sent around the world to help combat hunger wherever it is needed. My hope and prayer is that this endeavor of mine will challenge me spiritually and physically to rely on something that I take for granted way too much – the ability to eat as much as I want, any time I want.
In the coming weeks, I will hopefully use this blog as a way to ask for your prayers and your financial support for my Lenten journey.
