Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.
(1 Thessalonians 5.11
NRSV)
"In the midst of this dying ghetto," Tony Campolo tells us, "something incredible is happening." A Pentecostal church is growing by leaps and bounds. "This church is committed to doing work that many might consider impossible--rebuilding the community." The church has organized and trained young people to remodel the thousands of rundown, deserted houses. Thus, young people are given jobs while inexpensive housing is being offered for sale to many.
"Living as they do, in a social environment that is both anti-Christian and delinquent," Campolo writes, "it is nearly impossible for most teenagers and young adults...to stand alone and withstand the pressure to conform." It is "the relationships developed through the church [that] have given them the fortitude and courage to maintain a Christian counter-culture mentality in the midst of a very tough environment." When our lives are transformed, we move from being self-centered to being community-centered. Our lives run contrary to a hedonistic culture saturated with drugs. Rather we learn to reach out to others in love.
Loving God, may I be apart of building up a community where it is needed the most. Amen.