I spent the day yesterday at Shepherd Community Church.  Shepherd is located on the near eastside, just a few blocks east of downtown Indy.  Jay Height is the Executive Director of Shepherd Community Inc.  as well as serving as co-pastor of the Shepherd Community Church of the Nazarene.  He and his wife Jane have three wonderful children all actively involved in ministry.  David and Kelly Noe serve as co-pastor along with Jay and likewise have a beautiful family.  I preached in the three morning services.  It was an amazing experience.  If you wonder if anyone is making a difference come and spend the day at Shepherd.  Lives are being changed through the power of Christ and a ministry and a local church.  I was surrounded by transformation yesterday. I saw people who have been changed by Christ and the compassionate caring of a community of believers.  I also prayed over a group of young people from colleges and universities across America who have come to Indianapolis to spend the summer to minister at Shepherd.  They will witness this summer how God is using Shepherd to be light in their community.  I am praying that God will speak to them while spending the summer in our city and that God will use them to make a difference wherever God and life leads them.

Shepherd is more than just a compassionate ministry center.  Though it is that, and one of the best operating anywhere.  I saw a community of believers, a family, a church.  As I looked around the room in the first service it struck me that most of us if not all of us in that room would never have met and come to know each other had it not been for Jesus. There is a love in the service that the world cannot duplicate but tries to imitate.  There was genuine worship, kindness, compassion and caring.  Everyone is welcome and made to feel like a part of the family.  The staff is outstanding.  They love Christ, the church, the community and they live out their faith in wonderful ways.

I get a chance to be around Shepherd several times a year.  So, I have gotten to know and recognize some of the people.  Every time I see them it is like a great homecoming.  They are a warm group of people.  Shepherd is making a difference.

I love work and witness trips and have participated in them, but do not forget that God is dong a work on the east side of Indianapolis through Shepherd Community INC and Shepherd Community Church of the Nazarene.  You will be blessed and impressed if you came down and spend some time volunteering at Shepherd.

Thanks Jay Height and David Noe and your staff and volunteers, you are making a difference!  Please prayerfully consider supporting the many and varied ministry and services provided by Shepherd.

Keep supporting the work of world evangelism and remember the places like Shepherd that are making a difference one person at a time.

 

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