Family Fall Festival

Dear Friend, I am writing to invite you to participate in loving a particular neighborhood in our beloved city of Philadelphia. As you know, I live in Frankford. It has been our home for eight years. There is so much that we love about our neighborhood, yet it is, like much of our city, filled with sin as well as hope. And within our neighborhood, there is a street that is infamously known for high crime, for being concentrated with drug abuse, violence, and littered with poorly managed half-way houses. The 4500-4600 Blocks of Leiper Street is sadly regarded as a hard-to-reach neighborhood and a place where people are regarded as trashed, lost, hopeless, and to be feared. BUT…..

I love that word, BUT! Often in the Bible, we read about the ruinous consequence of sin only to be met with the words “But God.” This is a phrase of hope, of anticipation over what God will do. It is a phrase that at once acknowledges the problem, but doesn’t end the story there. “But God” tells us that God will not concede defeat, that God will ignore any neighborhood, that when God moves into a city, God’s “grace pools down like water to the lowest places”. “But God” says that Leiper Street is not beyond the reach of God’s grace. As a good friend reminds me, “C.T. Studd once said, ‘Some people want to live within the sound of chapel bells, but I want to run a mission a yard from the gates of hell!’” The glory of the gospel is that we have been saved by Christ to love our neighbors as ourselves, to serve those in hard-to-reach places with the dignity and honor that we would give if we were serving Christ himself. We have been given the freedom from death and sin in order to be used by God to set others free. Grace is like water in another way—if you keep it too long in a bottle, it grows stale and unfit to drink. God’s grace to us has been given to us so that we could give it away freely! What Leiper Street needs is a kiss of grace. It needs to know that God’s grace is for them, that Jesus has not come to Leiper Street to condemn them, but that through Him, they may find healing and hope. What Leiper Street needs is to see the church demonstrate God’s unexplainable, irrational, and scandalous generosity of love. It need to feel, touch, see, and hear God’s extravagant love for them. THAT IS WHAT THE FAMILY FALL FESTIVAL IS ALL ABOUT!!!!!!! On October 27, 2012, churches from the community will be joining together to throw a carnival right on Leiper Street. A Carnival for all ages, a carnival with a mission—to show and tell the love of Jesus for all peoples, for the people of Frankford. Imagine Huge Moon Boucers, fun and clean DJ, live bands, games all over, candy, prizes, face-painting, sports activities, and food. Imagine booths all around providing an array of spiritual and social services: dental/health care, recovery centers, evangelistic literature, information on local churches, prayer services. Imagine police officers volunteering their time to help make this event safe for EVERYONE. Imagine catching a preview glimpse of the vision of Zechariah 8, “Old men and old women will sit on benches on the streets and spin tales, move around safely with their canes—a good city to grow old in. And boys and girls will fill the public parks, laughing and playing—a good city to grow up in!” (The Message). Imagine this, and now, help us make this a reality! We need volunteers---people who want to say to Sin and Death what God said to the waves, “You shall come no further here and overwhelm the earth.” We want you to tell us how you can help us. The need is great, but the joy of seeing someone come to faith in Jesus is greater! The angels will be celebrating in heaven when sinners repent and come to Jesus, so let’s give people a taste of what that is like! Here is what we need: Prayer warriors