It Only Takes One

Posted on June 11, 2012 by ELN

Here at Awakening School of Ministry in Long Beach CA, we are coming to the end of our very first year, and what an incredible year it has been! God has done so much and spoken so much. Life change has happened! The Lord has begun to define our mission as an ELN program moving forward and we would love to tell you a bit about it.

Since we first began to make preparations to open Awakening, the Lord has given us a passion to use the program to reach out and bless our city. We really want to make a difference. Our vision is for Awakening and our church to be recognized for loving God and for practically loving those in need. Our pastors have a huge heart for outreach, so they involved our students in our church’s annual Harvest Festival and Christmas Festival, where we bless our neighborhood with free food, games and giveaways. We were also able to partner with other local churches for various events to bless our city. But this was just whetting our appetite for the future things we believe God wants to do through us.

In one of our classes this year we read, The Cause Within You (http://amzn NULL.com/1414348525), by Pastor Matthew Barnett (we highly recommend it!). Then we had the amazing opportunity to plan our annual mission trip to Pastor Matthew’s own ministry, The Dream Center in Los Angeles. We went with the purpose of learning everything we could about how they do inner city ministry, and with a heart to hear what God would speak about bringing these things home to Long Beach. While we were serving at The Dream Center, someone stated, “We don’t go serve meals just to give away food and fill bellies for a day. The food is just a way to get into the lives of people so that we can talk to them about Jesus.” This really resonated with us, and we felt the Lord’s confirmation: “You can do this too!”

Through that experience the Lord once again confirmed the calling and the vision He had given us to begin reaching out to our city. We were encouraged and empowered to believe that we CAN make a difference in Long Beach!

It only takes one word from God and one person, or one church, or one ELN program, to be purposeful and DO something. So here at Awakening, we are getting ready to infiltrate Long Beach with the LOVE and the GOOD NEWS of JESUS; one block, one family, one person at a time. If this stirs up something in your spirit, let this be an invitation to come join in the work of the ministry!

Listen to Tony’s Dream Center mission trip testimony:

Check us out at www.AwakeningLB.com (http://www NULL.AwakeningLB NULL.com)

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