18 My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. ~ 1 John 3:18 NKJV
By Bro. John L. Cash
We’ve created a neat new tradition at the country church. About once a month in place of our regular Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting, we have a different kind of service. We call it “Missions and a Meal.”
We begin the evening with a come-and-go meal from 6 until 7pm. Bo Clark, our resident stewpot and barbeque expert, prepares a delicious supper for everyone. After that, we have a sermon from our visiting missionaries and take up a love offering for their work.
Some of our meetings have been for foreign missions, like Haiti, Indonesia, and Ukraine. Others have been for local missionaries, like The Gideons and our local homeless shelter. All of our “Missions and a Meal” have been well-attended, and the offerings taken have been generous.
Last month we had a wonderful meeting. Our mission was a Christian drug rehab located here in Mississippi. Several young men who had completed this program gave testimonies of how they had been freed from drug addiction by the power of the Lord. Their sermons were as good as I have ever heard.
But the words that moved me most that evening were given to me after the service by the mother of one of the addicts. She said, “Did you ever think about how many people are helped when you help an addict get clean? You help his parents, his grandparents, his wife, his children, and all his family. You help his pastor and his church. You help his employer and co-workers. You help the police and the jail system. You benefit society as a whole. When you support a person in rehab, you are giving a gift that goes on and on.”
If you’re interested in sending a financial gift to a Christian drug rehab, I can email you the name of a good one. And if you (or someone you love) is in need of a resident-Christian-rehab in Mississippi, we can help with that, too — even if you can’t afford it. Either way, it will be some of the best time and money you’ve ever spent.
Dr. John L. Cash is the “Country Preacher Dad.” He was raised in Stuttgart, Arkansas, and has spent the last 32 years being a country preacher in the piney woods five miles south of the little town of Hickory, Mississippi. He’s a retired Mississippi public schoolteacher with grown sons, and is now a stay-at-home-grandpa with his grandson, Landon Cash. He and his lovely wife, Susan, live in a brick house in town (where all the guys have had head colds this week.) You can send him a note at brotherjohn@ilovechurchcamp.com.
