I am so thankful for God’s faithfulness in 2010. Just this year Church on the Street has served over 25 different churches and organizations through our Mission Trip/Training program – that’s over 750 individuals encountering Christ in the guise of the poor and being equipped to minister in their home communities. We developed a new volunteer driven outreach program called Saturdays on the Street that has now trained 10 individuals for leadership and has hosted over 100 volunteers who have cared for our homeless friends. I have had the privilege to consult, train or speak at over a dozen churches and organizations across the country. And when the economy has remained difficult for most Americans and giving has leveled off for Church on the Street without any significant increase, we have been able to maintain strict financial responsibility with your gifts by trimming our expenses by 20% and remaining in the black.
Although we have had to trim our budget and cut back on some of our staffing and programming God has continued blessing the ministry of Church on the Street by allowing us to develop meaningful friendships with large swaths of our outsized homeless population. No doubt the reach of our ministry is far greater than our size would suggest. We have been witnesses to God’s hand moving in the life of our poor and homeless friends as well as in our own lives. We have seen drug dealers come to Christ, addicts freed from their bondage, and the outcast become active members of their communities. We have also seen the hearts of the most skeptical of society softened and the minds of the cynical transformed. Our greatest joy is seeing two people from two different worlds with two completely different histories come together to listen to and love one another through the ministry of reconciliation – or what we call friendship.
We have even greater expectations for this next year and hope that you will consider being a part this wonderful thing that God is doing through Church on the Street. We need your prayerful and financial assistance as we end this year and enter into a new one. Never before have we felt more centered in the will of our Heavenly Father. Never before have we felt more convinced that we are doing the right thing, with the right message, in the right place at the right time. Come along with us brother as we love the unlovable. Come along with us sister as we do the work of our Lord.
You can change a life by clicking here to make a safe online donation or by mailing your donation to: Church on the Street, P.O. Box 54717, Atlanta, GA 30308.
Your Missionary on the Streets,
Pastor Andy
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