Madison Christian Giving Fund Appeals to Christian Community

omething I wanted to do, but when I got word about your contribution, that is when I knew it was truly possible.”

Christian-based organizations that care deeply about the issues of social injustice and human need often find it necessary to diminish or hide the message of Jesus Christ for fear of being rejected outright or losing federal, state, county, corporate and private funding.  Earlier this year a group of volunteers, led by Scott Haumersen of Wegner CPAs, established the Madison Christian Giving Fund to address this need.  The fiscal sponsor of the local effort is the National Christian Foundation, one of the largest charitable organizations in the country. 

The FUND exists to provide grants to organizations that work to both rectify social injustice and meet human needs, but also to address the heart condition that is at the root of many of these needs by presenting the message of Jesus Christ.  

The fundraising goal for 2015 is $200,000 and $100,000 has been raised so far.   However, as evidence of the need in Madison, the FUND received grant requests totaling $504,000 from 50 qualifying organizations!  

And so, the FUND is appealing to the Christian community to help meet this need, which we believe will serve people and advance the Kingdom of God in Madison.  Leveraging social media, the FUND has joined the #GivingTuesday movement.  #GivingTuesday, on December 1 this year, was established in 2012 to counter the excesses of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Learn more about #GivingTuesday here: #GivingTuesday

Our appeal is this: go to https://madison-christian-giving-fund.networkforgood.com/, donate and share using the social media tabs on the page.  Please, help us empower the Christian non-profits in Madison.  They have earned our support!

Lighthouse to Expand Bi-LingualChristian Day Care

Lighthouse Church, under the leadership of Marcio and Tia Sierra, serves low to medium income Latino families in Dane County, Wisconsin. Lighthouse currently operates a bi-lingual pre-school program for 2, 3, and 4 year olds at their west Madison Location. They also provide free counseling for parents when needed. They are NAEYC Accredited and have earned a 5- Star rating from Youngstar, Wisconsin's Child Care Rating Program, the highest rating possible. Not surprisingly, the Lighthouse Child Care program is in great demand and they have a waiting list.

To meet this demand, Lighthouse is expanding their services to include infants and one-year olds at a brand new location in Eagle Harbor Apartments at 1360 MacArthur Road, in January 2015. Ever since Care Net and the Elizabeth House was established on MacArthur Road, a Christian day care has been an integral part of their vision. Imagine a new mom and her baby moving into her first apartment at Eagle Harbor.  She can drop her child off at the Lighthouse Day Care facility, confident that he/she will be well loved and cared for while she works or pursues her education. Lighthouse will be able to serve 36 children from all over Dane County at Eagle Harbor.  

Lighthouse needs help from the community to pull this off. Start up costs are estimated at $50,000 for furniture, equipment, supplies, fixtures and staff expenses. The Madison Christian Generosity Fund has agreed to match any donation of $1000 or more, up to $5000, so Lighthouse can expand their valuable services to the children and parents of Madison's Latino community. You can help by clicking here.  Watch the video,  and donate as you are led.  If a lot of people contribute just a little, Lighthouse will be providing a high quality Christian, bi-lingual day care on Madison's east side.  

Gates of Glory - August - An Urgent Call to Prayer

It's a beautiful thing when the Madison Saints gather to worship Jesus and pray.  Once a month Gates of Glory is held in a different venue, always on the third Friday of the month. Last Friday night the scene was Lighthouse Church on the west side.  Lighthouse is a bi-lingual, Spirit filled body led by Pastors Marcio and Tia Sierra.  Saints from all over Madison showed up at 7:00pm with the express purpose of worshipping God.  

After an extended period of worship in song, one of the leaders was prompted to ask the saints to pray for the nations. From a human point of view the chaos and violence in the middle east looks to have no political or military solution.  So, we appeal to God and the people and leaders of Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Israel, Palestine, Russia and Ukraine were lifted up.  Prayers for peace, justice, and protection were offered in earnest.  

We prayed for Jesus to reveal himself (as He has many times in the past) to the terrorists so they would turn away from their wicked ways and place their faith in Christ.  

Prayers were offered for our government leaders who are faced with grave decisions on how to respond to the terrorist threats around the world.

Lastly, Pastor Sierra made an impassioned plea for the church in Madison to stand in the gap with the persecuted praying believers in the middle east, quoting 2 Chronicles 7:14.

The big question is, how will the believers in Madison respond to this urgent call?  Our brothers and sisters and others are being forced from their homes, tortured, kidnapped and killed. Our moral duty is to join them in prayer.

Intimacy With God Conference - Personal Reflections

Last week City Church invited the saints in Madison to explore what it means to have intimacy with God.  All of the messages can be accessed here.  The assumption is that one who is intimate with God is free and empowered to love as God loves, see as God sees, feel as God feels, and to act as God would want us to act to fulfill our God-given purpose in the world.
The Bible promises so much more than most of us experience on a day to day basis.  For example,

• Psalm 16:11 says "you will make known to me the path of life, in thy presence is fulness of joy, in thy right hand are pleasures evermore".
• Psalm 36:8 says "they feast on the abundance of your house, you give them drink from your river of delights".
• John 7:38, "Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, sreams of living water will flow from within him".
• Galatians 5:22, "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self control".

So it seems that intimacy with God is the key that unlocks to door to these blessings, and many more. The good news is that God wants this too.  He delights in us (Zephaniah 3:17)

I only attended 2 of the 6 sessions so I probably didn't get the full picture.  For what it's worth here are my take-aways:

• If I desire intimacy with God, He does too, it starts with Him. He is placing that desire in my heart.
• If I want intimacy with God, I need to reset my physical, spiritual, and mental systems.  Like when you shut down your computer and restart it 5 minutes later to get it to do what you want.  

There is nothing new here.  Fasting, meditation, in depth bible study, confession and repentance are time-tested spiritual disciplines, Spirit prompted and designed to help us develop intimacy with God.
See Richard Foster's Celebration of Disciplines.

The question is how bad do I want it, and am I willing to pay the price?  The answer is "Of course, He is worth it!"

On Thursday morning Marlene Sorenson talked about a refining, a burning away, a purifying, a cleansing of the things that keep us from intimacy with God.  Things like habits, addictions, apathy, busyness. These things just creep in and pile up like dust bunnies under your bed.  At some point you just have to clean house.

On Saturday Marcio Sierra talked about the need to intentionally remove the barriers to intimacy with Jesus.  "Just repeat His name, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus and He will do the cleansing."

I got the distinct impression that Jesus was saying to me, and possibly the church in Madison, "This is job 1.  You pray for revival but you are not willing to seek me with your whole heart.  I am not going to do anything until you repent and return to me." Revelation 3:20

"If My People, Who Are Called by My Name..." II Chronicles 7:14

At what point do we stop our foolishness and pay attention to what's going on in the world? When will we stop blaming this guy or that guy, this decision or that no-decision or the motives behind them, that got us (yes us) in this mess? (And please believe me, this WILL affect us, living in our comfortable, safe bubble.)  When will we stop believing that different leaders or a new coalition will save us? When are we desperate enough to cry out to God for deliverance, mercy, justice and peace?

It is when we realize that THERE ARE NO SOLUTIONS, apart from the intervention of Almighty God!

I am specifically talking about the growing calamity in the Middle East, a humanitarian crisis that will dwarf the Rwandan genocide. ISIS is on the move in Iraq and Syria, with the ultimate goal, according to some, of establishing a Sunni state which would include Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Southern Turkey.  Set against this agenda is the world's premier sponsor of terrorism, and developer of nuclear capability, Iran.  In the meantime, hundreds of thousands of innocent people will be tortured, maimed, displaced and killed.

Who or what will save us from this disaster?  The once mighty United States of America has no answers, no allies, and no credibility.  The United Nations is paralyzed.  The Western world is tired of failed efforts to bring peace to Iraq and Afghanistan, fed up with corrupt governments, lost lives, and billions spent to no avail.

A week ago Zack Beauchamp of VOX closed his blog this way, "Iraq has essentially just began another civil war, and it's totally unclear how long its going to last, or how its going to end.  And no one's sure what to do about it."

So what will it take to wake us up, to cause us to fall on our knees and pray for God to save the world from this madness?

If this doesn't do it, nothing will.  God help us.