« Give It to Them Will | Main | Winning »
December 16, 2006
The Pursuit of Happyness
After viewing the movie "Eragon" with my son Joshua and two of his friends Delphine met me at the movie to view the movie "Pursuit of Happyness." Will Smith starred in this true story about the life of Chris Gardner. Mr. Gardner and his son lived on the streets of the San Francisco Bay Area as homeless persons. Gardner perseveres and eventually becomes a stock broker after a chance encounter with a stock broker who tells him that all it takes is someone with a gift for working with numbers and people.
Armed with this word of encouragement Gardner suffers through the loss of his wife, homelessness, no income and having to win a permanent job against many who have more education than him to become a multi-millionaire. Gardner becomes a transformed man.
How many of our people sitting in the pews of their church need a word of encouragement? So what do they receive when they dare to venture into our places of worship? In the movie, Chris Gardner pursued happiness but how many of us realize that we are the ones being pursued by the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit offers us a relationship with God through Jesus that brings us "...life abundantly.” Imagine what could happen if we began to offer a word of encouragement to many in despair.
Posted by Bishop at December 16, 2006 09:33 PM
Comments
Somehow I don't see evidence that clergy are taught at seminary how to share the blessings of Jesus. They learn from their mentors that it safer to emphasize paying apportionments and catching up the clergy pension fund than to take a chance on affecting a life by the touch of the Father.
Posted by: emanuel blount at January 3, 2007 01:39 PM
If we did as you suggested, I bet those membership numbers would be going in a different direction.
Posted by: Justin at December 28, 2006 10:20 AM