Servolution

Dino Rizzo, pastor of Healing Place Church (11 sites, 18 services, over 7,000 participating) was featured yesterday on the inaugural Leadership Network program “The Show”. Some of his key points:

• We have got to understand the power of diversity
• The disciples and the early church were models of diversity and opposites attracting
• God calls us to reach people we don’t care about
• In John 5, Jesus models how to leave the group for the one
• Opposites are going to attract
• The integrity of ministry is not to the masses, but to the one
• The poor were never meant to be a trend; therefore the heart to serve the poor shouldn’t be a trend, but a part of our DNA
  

Servolution is a book title. It’s also a movement that Healing Place Church pioneered for churches to reach out to their communities in the 7 days before Easter. Rizzo estimates that tens of thousands of volunteers from over 240 churches in 38 states and 15 nations served hundreds of thousands of people during that period.

Servolution – get used to it!

The Church Has Left the Building

Across the country it seems as if a revival of service is taking place. In churches large and small, in urban and rural areas alike, the people of God are discovering the ministry of service in unique and practical ways. And through it all, the love of God is being offered to people who desperately need it.

Yesterday I recounted the story of Granger Community Church and its involvement in the Monroe Circle Community Center. Amazing things have happened there in the last eight years – and it appears that even more amazing things will happen in the future.

Hundreds of churches in Portland Oregon came together in a “Season of Service” to address five community concerns: homelessness, the medically uninsured, public schools, hunger, and the environment. Over 25,ooo volunteers from these churches fanned out across the city in an outpouring of love and generosity that moved the city. Even skeptical city officials were amazed at the outflow, and promised to continue working with the churches to accomplish even greater things. Evangelist Luis Palau, Pastor Rick McKinley of Imago Dei and Pastor John Bishop of Living Hope Church are leading the efforts.

Dino Rizzo and the Healing Place Church in Baton Rouge LA started a “revolution through serving” several years ago. It has attracted a lot of national attention, and in the week before Easter, churches large and small from one end of the country to the other participated in simple acts of kindness intended to show their communities their unconditional love. Even now, almost a month later, “Servolution” stories continue to be shared via Twitter (#servolution).

What’s the deal? Here’s my take on what’s happening: We typically think of the church as the “gathered” collection of believers in a place and time: usually on Sunday mornings. Powerful worship and illuminating study of the Word of God takes place. Then the church goes home. One week later, repeat. On and on, happily oblivious to the desperate needs outside the church walls. It’s almost as if we live separate lives.

But now take another look - the “scattered” church is awakening to the power of God lived out in member’s daily lives. People are realizing that they are called to be the hands and feet of Christ, ministering and serving others as they live out their daily lives.

What a concept – a pity it has only taken us 2,000 years to begin to understand it.