Preface
This article aligns with my article submission for the Young Writers Program, managed by Press Services International. This program helps to provide a ready-source of content for the magazine publication Christian Today Australia.
The PSI/Christian Today article – my 31st – was first published Friday 10 December 2021 and is available here.
View the full list of my articles here.
Introduction
In this current season of serving in my local/home church – the Clayton Church of Christ Fellowship – I have had the privilege of not just giving and sowing in the lives of the local community, but also grown in faith and my relationship with God. I was recording my video segment for one of our Sunday services, where the message of Sustainable Sacrifice was the second in our series on Being the Blessing. You can check out that service here on YouTube.
This article complements that message and recording.
My Background & Faith Journey
When I embarked on this faith journey back in 2013–2014, the challenge was, and still remains – to be obedient to Christ and His teachings. I still remember, back then as a single young(ish) Christian, that together with other peers, we would spend our free time after a Sunday church service, not just socialising and having lunch together, but actively putting our faith into action. Back then, we would prayer walk and ask God literally – who would He have us reach out to?
Ever since, as I continued to step out in faith and steward the little that God would entrust me with, I slowly found myself growing in capacity to love, and to lead and bring others along this journey.
See, now at the end of 2021, I bring to an end one era of service – it has been 14 years since I joined the Young Adult/Surge ministry within my church. For half of that time, I have served as a life-group leader. Along that journey, God brought my wife and me together and we served together for the last five years in that capacity.
In 2017, when Love Loud began, I quickly became involved. At the time, Love Loud was an annual packaging of Christmas community-based projects. It was the beginning for our church to learn and grow in understanding and supporting our local community. Projects at the time were largely focused and agreed with community stakeholders – including Monash Council.
COVID: An even greater opportunity for God to work
When COVID hit in 2020, I was in between IT consulting/business analyst contract work. Since 2018, also prompted by God as a faith step, I had given up the comfort of being an employee at the consulting firm where I had spent 12 years of service, to embrace a contract style of employment. Trust God with my career and his provision of work every 6–12 months can only be faith at work.
It was in that season of looking for work that I asked God how I could help church respond to COVID. Tapping into my network, I had secured a deal with a restaurant owner to deliver their meals to the church customer base who I helped to market and connect to. During that initial first lockdown of 2020, I developed the capability and skill for delivery driving and service. Turning that experience into the Love Loud Free Meal Delivery was made possible through the partnership with other like-minded individuals who shared the same passion to help the local community and international students.
In April 2020, we began delivering cooked meals sponsored by our foundational sponsor. For the first few months, as a core team of 3–4 individuals, we delivered every week while also canvassing greater and more official support from the church.
In June 2020, God blessed me with an incredible work contract opportunity through the Victorian State Government Kickstarter $2B COVID response funding. While holding down that full-time employment, it could only have been God’s hand at work since it gave me a period of networking, where I worked for the local City of Monash Council. The connections to church and official council endorsement for the meal delivery program all helped to reaffirm to me – God at work.
I was blind but now I see
All my life, I have lived in relative comfort. I have never worried about shelter or food, or any basic need. As a child, God had blessed me with a half-academic scholarship to Haileybury College, with my Dad generously sponsoring the other half…
The transition to university also came with academic excellence in the form of the Industry Based Learning scholarship program attached to my undergraduate study in Business (Information) Systems. Everything on this path, leading into my career today has been an incredible blessing – but these worldly comforts partially made me blind to the reality of God’s wider Kingdom.
Ever since trusting and obeying God in serving in Love Loud, my eyes have been opened to God’s wider Kingdom. I have met firsthand and developed relationships with people whose lives are the complete opposite to mine. The hardships and struggles of young people, and families is very real. And COVID in most cases only amplified that suffering.
As part of assessing the needs and seeking to understand the plight of those seeking meal support, God has unveiled my eyes. We hear and read a lot about poverty and mental health – but when you encounter it for real, it really opens your mind.
The words of Jesus from Matthew chapter 25 verse 40 are so true:
And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!
Sustainable sacrifice
I spend approximately half a day a week volunteering to coordinate the whole Love Loud Free Meal Delivery program – rostering and preparing the routes. Ever since 2014, as I continually expanded and redefined how much more of my time and talent I gave to God and Kingdom work, I have consistently attributed it to being by God’s strength, not my own. I am very careful to lay down my pride because God is the one who deserves all honour and glory.
Our role is simply to listen, to obey and to make ourselves available to be his hands and feet in stewarding the time and talent he has blessed us with, so that we can be rivers of living water passing on the blessing to those who need to know – we serve an awesome God who loves them.