People don’t grow where they are planted, they grow where they are loved.

My Sunday mornings are cray cray.  Like, seriously.  This season of life has brought me “slower” weeks and VERY busy weekends. I spend most Saturdays on my seminary’s campus in class or out and about volunteering.  And of course, I spend time with family and friends.  Sundays though take the cake. On Sundays, I do double church – first at Forest Hill-NoDa and then I spend several hours at The King’s Kitchen, worshiping with homeless neighbors and families from the neighborhoods I volunteer in that are in West Charlotte.  And y’all I love it.  Every single minute of it all.  [Not that I’m not completely exhausted at the end of it all….I totally AM.]

What I love most is that on Sundays, I get to see the kids that we serve GROW.

Many of these kids are living in very tough environments where they have little, if any, exposure to the Gospel and love of Jesus Christ. But that second piece….it’s changing. [And in many cases, that first piece is changing too!]

They are being exposed to LOVE….

Because God IS LOVE.

John writes in 1 John 4:7-11….”Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God IS love. In this, the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us.”

Ok, so first…pause…propitiation means an “atoning sacrifice”.  God sent His son Jesus to BE a sacrifice for ALL of our sins.  Not just the little ones.  ALL.  Now, that’s LOVE.

Y’all…. God loved us FIRST. [Hello, He sent His Son to DIE for us.]  And because of that, we are called to love one another. When we do that, we share God and therefore share LOVE.

On Sundays, we LOVE the kids.  Probably to the point where we are ANNOYING to them. [I’ve gotten used to the eye rolls and side eyes.]

But they know they are loved. And I can see them growing. Their hearts have softened and they yearn to know more about God.  These three ran up to me last week incredibly excited that they had learned The Lord’s Prayer (….also known as The Disciples’ Prayer). I got to witness GROWTH.  I mean, y’all.  It is such an honor. And it’s all God.  Because God is LOVE.

Over the past year, we’ve more than doubled the number of children we have coming consistently to our Children’s Church. They may have been planted in a part of Charlotte where they have little opportunity to grow, but by golly, we are going to LOVE them so that they GROW…….exponentially!

Don’t let your roots define your growth. Get to know LOVE……God.  Be LOVE.  And GROW. Because He created you to be LOVED and to LOVE. And you are SOOOOOO LOVED.  So, GROW.