Good NewsWeek

There is a powerful and heartening good news story this week in News Week Newsweekly. At a time when the news media buries most of the positive stories and TV shows and politicians ridicule Christ we need some good news. When there are famous media people such as Robert McNeil of the McNeil Lerer News Program who compares conservative Christians to Jihadists, this is good news indeed.

Take a look at this link to see the good news.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17551802/site/newsweek/

I first read this article yesterday in the paper copy of News Week. It was written by a young Jewish woman whose adult brother has Autism or similar difficulties. She confesses she knew little if anything about him and he lived alone and friendless for most of his life. Then, something great happened to him. God got involved with him through a church fellowship.

The results are fascinating and heart warming. They are also very positive in enocurageing us to never give up. We need to always look for ways to bring healing into the lives of even the most hopeless persons with "impossible" disabilities.

It is also a message about how spirituality needs to be at the center of our healing thrust. Servant Evangelism is popular now thanks to the great work of Steve Sjogren and the Vineyard Community Church. Many people have found Christ and changed lives as a result of SE's emphasis on The Outward Focused Church.

Let me, however, offer a word of caution lest the great tool of Servanthood be mistaken by novices for the final answer to the needs of the world. General Booth, a key proponent of working with and for the poor, and founder of The Salvation Army, said something like the following: I shudder to think what would happen if we had an army with no salvation.

The refreshing story in News Week shows how a co-worker reached out to the young man with a severe disability and brought him into a Bible study where He found far more than a Diet Coke for his thirst, he found the River of Living Waters. He also found love, peace and substantial healing.

His sister found a new brother with new life and new health and a fundamentalist church with new eyes. Maybe we need to send Robert McNeil over to visit that church to see if he could be healed of his rigid bigotry.

We Christians might find new hope for developing a healing community.