Thinking Outside The Box
Bonnie Payton was a 500.00 a night stripper. Her story is in a column in today’s Nashville Tennessean. "I asked God to rescue me," says Bonnie, 2½ years after she escaped Valium's haze — "I had to use drugs to deal with pain I felt from what I was doing" — and reclaimed her self-esteem."
"There are others out there I can help by talking about my life. Someone needs to let them know they don't need to give up. They can leave that life. God will help."
Bonnie was aided by the McKenzie Faith Foundation and the Christian Women's Job Corps. The first is devoted to rescuing strippers, helping them reclaim their lives. CWJC helped her manage her dyslexia, get her high school diploma and prepare for her future." Click here to read the rest of the story.
I share this story with you because the work of the McKenzie Faith Foundation and the Christian Women’s Job Corps are works that are outside the box. These are the types of programs that change lives and they are the kind of programs we as the Body of Christ need to be leading the way in.
Dawn Ferguson is a member at Madison Church of Christ and is presently working with Christian Women’s Job Corps. Plans are underway to start a branch of CWJC at Madison. They hope to be able to reach out on a more local basis to women that would not be able to travel to the down town location. I am excited about the prospect and what this program can and will mean for many in the Madison area.
If you had seen Bonnie Payton as one of her alter-egos, Sasha or Destiny, what would you have thought? Would it have occurred to you that this was a young lady with a Christian background? Would the thought have ever crossed your mind that she was miserable and that God was at work in her life trying to bring her back to Himself? It would be so easy to just write folks like this off as hopeless cases, but not with God.
My prayer is that we will learn to think outside the box. That we will over come our reluctance and reach out to groups that we have not dreamed of associating with. I want to learn better how to have the spontaneous compassion that was seen in the life of Jesus. God is at work in their lives. The question is, "Will we join Him?"
(Photo By Jonathan D. Woods, Nashville Tennessean)
Too often church programs are designed specifically to help its members rather than with an emphasis to help those outside the body. Madison is working to help those in need, and perhaps other churches will take note and set up programs that target the lost. (Comment this)