Back in the day, my church used to have various ministries; sports teams like men's slow pitch softball, various specialty ministries. I can't remember them all now because it was so long ago.
The church no longer has those ministries and let me tell you why. Craig, Preacher, decided that the church needed focus on less ministries and do those well versus dilly dallying in lots of ministries not doing them well. Dedicate the church to a few and be the best; they are.
I ran across a video on a man named Joseph Kony. Prior to Tuesday night at 11:00pm, this man was unfamiliar to me. I was seeing lots of "Kony 2012" hashtags on twitter and wondered who this political fool was. After watching the video, I realized he is a bad man who is in charge of the LRA, Lord's Resistance Army, in Uganda. He and his men for the past 26 years, have kidnapped over 66,000 very young boys and girls and used them to fight for him. These children were required more but I'm not going to share.
I watched the video while holding a sleeping and coughing Colbie and just cried. The makers of the movie, Invisible Children, have a goal to stop Kony. I was all about it and excited to help, then twitter hit me. I began receiving so many various links to people's sites that contained their opinions against the organization, Invisible Children, makers of the film.
I'll spare you the details of what I read because as soon as I would read a negative rant against IC, I would find a positive, "We are the World," rant for them and hence I became very confused. Honestly, I am still very confused. Then it hit me last night around 10:30pm with a sleeping and coughing Colbie on me, that I needed to "back it on up."
My family supports our church, LifeChurch.tv, with our tithe. Above and beyond that, our money goes to Compassion International and our sponsored child in Ecuador. I realized my family gives to two organizations; we do it well and we do it generously. (Not calling my tithe 'generousity' ok? Just making a point.)
Rather than dilly dally in various organizations, I decided to stick with the two I know and do it the best I can. I hope Kony is stopped. I hope Invisible Children take this responsibility of all these followers very seriously and do right by the people that have given money.
For me, I'm stepping back and sticking with what I know.
I know what you mean about the conflicting sides. At the very least, IC is making people AWARE. If more people start thinking of the children of Uganda and less about what's on Us Weekly, then they've accomplished something. A dear friend of mine is adopting from Uganda, and it hurts my heart that her child is even near that kind of evil much less affected by it.
ReplyDeleteJust remember this: The Devil wants us confused. He wants us to back off. He wants us to be timit and uninspired. I am not saying that you have to financially support IC but I am saying that you can pray like a crazy woman for them, Uganda and all the victims. If Compassion has orphans in Uganda you can add one from there or even Sudan (also terrorized by Kony) I think both of those are forms of support, even if it is indirect. They want Kony famous but in reality what they want is Ephesians 5:11. They want to expose the deeds of darkness......That is the point.
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