Three Days in Seattle

I know I promised some more thoughts about changes in marriage and family in today's society, but I unexpectedly found myself in Seattle this week. I spent three days in Seattle with Mike Wilkerson and Justin Holcomb from the pastoral staff of Mars Hill Church, Pastor Robert Cheong from Sojourn Church in Louisville, KY, and Tom Kim, the director of a new ministry, Churches Helping Churches.

The reason for these meetings was to plan a conference for pastors in Haiti next month. The purpose is to minister to their needs, and then to encourage and equip them to minister to their congregations and the people of Haiti. Soon after the earthquake, Pastor Mark Driscoll from Mars Hill, and Pastor James MacDonald of Harvest Bible Chapel in Chicago flew to Haiti and were so moved by the devastation that they decided to start a new ministry, Churches Helping Churches.

So you ask what is my connection with all of this? Mark Wilkerson from MHC attended a seminar I gave in 2007 at the CCEF national conference on Responding to Disaster and Crisis. Mike called me last week and asked for me to join their planning team for the conference because of my experience in working with pastors and missionaries, and my work to develop a biblically based response to traumatic stress. So within a week of the first call, I found myself in the offices of Mars Hill Church located in a converted waterfront warehouse with a group of four other men who I didn’t know, putting together a 5 day program for Haitian pastors in crisis. Even though we come from diverse backgrounds, there was an uncanny unity in Christ as we focused on the task at hand. It was a priviledge to work with these men.

In about a month the team will be flying into Port of Prince to minister and provide biblical counseling to a group of 200 pastors. We will be working with STEP seminary at a yet to be determined location (the seminary was partially destroyed). Make no mistake about it, Haiti right now makes just about any other place poverty stricken country in the world look like a palace. Most of the displaced people are living in tent cities ranging in size from 800 to 15,000. Tom Kim has been to Haiti a number of times since the earthquake. He told us heart breaking stories of pastors who are simply shell shocked at the loss, not only for their communities and churches, but in their own lives. One pastor lost all five of his children. Another pastor walks around what’s left of his church building each day crying out to God. While the UN and other relief agencies are working to provide for the physical needs of the people, there is NO organized effort by any other organization to provide help for the pastors, or biblical counseling in traumatic stress (even among secular organizations, there is very little work to provide counseling support to the people). Please keep the team in prayer as we reach out to the church in Haiti. To find out more about Churches Helping Churches, go to their web site, www.churcheshelpingchurches.org, or you can find them on Facebook and Twitter. God be the glory! More to follow on this.

Blessings,

Dr. Paul