ShareHope.

"For Christians, pastoral care differs essentially from preaching in that here the task of listening is joined to the task of speaking the Word.  there is also a kind of listening with half an ear that presumes already to know what the other Christian and finally is only waiting to get a chance to speak and thus to get rid of the other.  This sort of listening is no fulfillment of our task.  And it is certain that here, too, in our attitude toward other Christians we simply see reflected our own relationship to that God has entrusted to us - hearing the  confession of another Christian - if we refuse to lend our ear to another person on lesser subjects.  The pagan world today knows something about persons who often can be helped only by having someone who will seriously listen to them.  On this insight it has built its own secular form of pastoral car, which has become popular with many people, including Christians.  But Christians have forgotten that the ministry of listening has been entrusted to them by the one who is indeed the great listener and in whose work they are to participate.  We should listen with the ears of God, so that we can speak the Word of God."

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Our listening has purpose.  We do listen, and then we do serve.. but not that our listening and our service may be the heart of our ministry.  For if it was, we may as well remove Christ from this mission all together.  For the pagans have become very well known for listening and "serving" as well, they have become just as "good" at it if not in many circumstances better at it than the Christian.  Yet without the Word of God, these things will inevitably become, if not even begin as, a web of manipulative, generalized and stereotyped advice grounded upon convenience and an ever growing fallacy that is the pride of attempting to "fix" another person.  People cant fix people... for the human heart is beyond the human himself.  It must be the supernatural that restores the heart.  After all, can a watch fix itself?

No, it cannot.  And so we embark to listen and serve only in as much as it is what God has placed on our hearts to be the instrument through which He will guide His word into the lives of those recipients that we shall be brought before.  We listen and we serve, we love, that the soil of the heart may be tilled such that when the Word of God be preached, or shared, or displayed...it falls upon ground good for growth and harvest. 

We will share the Gospel.  We will share upon the completion of our initial listening as the Lord leads for us to.  Also, we shall attempt to partner with churches and organizations whose facilities may be used for meal sharing within which the true Gospel of Christ will be presented.

Teaching and rebuking may very well occur.  Answering questions may certainly come about.  However, our heart is to simply, powerfully listen, to serve as led, and to boldly, blatantly, and purely, consistently share the true Gospel of Christ, that all may have heard the truth.  We believe this to be our calling and that upon our surrender and obedience to it, not we, but God shall water and grow the seeds sown... that the Spirit shall bring about the personal commitments in the hearts of those reached. 

We know that from the start it is God.  That even the planting of seeds through us, is God.  For anything we do for the Kingdom, we are called to do through the Spirit in our hearts.  Anything we do for the Kingdom is enabled to be done by the equipping of the Spirit.  It is all the Spirit.  Yes, from the start, it is God.  So we claim not to save people, but commit to surrender to the Lord who does save that He may listen and speak through us... that His ministry on earth may be continued through our vessels. 

"Life is simple.  We are going to go where God tells us, and we are going to preach Jesus when we get there."

-Clark VanWick