The Bake Sale

Yesterday was a great day. My church asked me to share a few words of encouragement about an upcoming Mexico trip that our youth group is participating in as part of our denomination. Each summer between 50 and 60 students and leaders from our Los Angeles Churches travel to Ensenada to serve our sister churches in that area with Adventures in Life Ministry. We have about 12 kids from our church who want to go and they will have raise a little over $300.00 each to be part of this ministry. I talked about how lives can be changed when people leave their comfort zones and learn to serve. And I shared about Chad. My first real impression of Chad was a few years back when he came on a mission trip to Mexico. He seemed to be there just to check out the girls, not really focused on Jesus and always sneaking around to have a cigarette. In short, he was not Hudson Taylor! Chad was with us again last year on mission, and while still not quite Hudson Taylor, he was a joy to have around. He had a servant’s heart and the change in him was apparent. On that trip Chad rededicated his life to Jesus and committed himself to missions. Yesterday Chad was baptized. That is what I love about ministry. Seeing change in peoples lives and watching them live out that change. Watching Christ transform someone, like a piece of clay into something unimaginable just a few months or years before. But getting back to our kids and their mission trip, as I was saying, they have to raise some bucks to be part of this experience. Chad is in charge of helping them raise the necessary funds. So, like all good Baptists, Chad organized a bake sale. It is interesting to note that even bake sales are falling victim to our over committed lifestyles. Lots of people brought store bought goodies to sell, apparently not understanding that the term bake sale means you are supposed to actually bake the stuff. After all, it is not a store bought pastry sale. Anyways, we had our kids helping people pick out their stuff and they raised over $1,000.00! One thousand dollars! We are not a large mega church. Maybe 120 people on an average Sunday. But they raised $1000.00, from a bake sale. Incredible. Jesus has changed Chad. From a kid sneaking around for a cigarette to a leader organizing a bake sale at a small church to raise over $1,000.00 to send others on mission. I can’t wait to see what happens when the rest of our group steps out, leaves their comfort zones, and serves in the name of Jesus. I’ll keep you posted.