#fhlbackyardmissions

God wants our faithfulness, not our success

March 11, 2012 Merlin Gonzales FHL Indiana, Message

“My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me,
the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”

Jeremiah 2:13

I believe this is a reminder to us that we need to put our faith in the Spring of Living Water. It is easy to try to “help God” to make things happen just because we are ministering to others. We have heard that there’s the part of man and the part of God in a given situation. I am not saying that we just sit and watch what God is doing. We have to put our trust and faith in God and His purpose before we look somewhere else.

When we are in a battle, we don’t see everything, but we can always bank on looking to Jesus first. That’s why the prophet Jeremiah said, let’s not leave the fountain of living water and go to the broken cisterns for fresh water. The cisterns could be our position or title, our “big” contact, our bank account or even our own abilities. These things are cracked jars that cannot hold no water at all!

Look to Jesus first then act accordingly.

Jeremiah prophesied and preached to the same people for about 40 years. Very few people listened to him but he continued to do what God had told him to do and say what God had told him to say. In our modern time, we can easily say that during Jeremiah’s ministry, he was failure. However, success in world’s view may not be the same success as defined by the Scripture. God wants our faithfulness, not our success.

Jeremiah may not have fully realized that the transformation of the people was already happening during his time. He had countless oppositions and he was banished from the people who had authority over the land…so they thought.

God is the fountain of fresh flowing water. Once we come to the point that we abandon everything for Him, He will empower us to do His will through us. Like the the prophet Jeremiah, God works in us and through us and He will make sure that He will continue to finish what He started in you.

Be encouraged, my friends!

Three Town Hall meetings in 2 days

March 9, 2012 Merlin Gonzales FHL Indiana, FHL Week

Last Wednesday, I joined the planning meeting in Pendelton, IN for the FHL Week in Pendelton/Anderson area. There was 2 pastors, 2 church leaders and a Chaplain for the Pendleton Police department. They are planning to something neat for the public servants (Can’t reveal what they are yet until they finalize the details of the project. They will share the same idea with the Anderson churches to see if they would like to do the same. The next step for them is to talk with several other town leaders for a few more projects they have in mind. They are looking to partner with churches, government and businesses. To find out more about the Pendleton/Anderson area, you can contact Wellspring Church at 317-491-2319 and ask for Facundo Cortez.

Later that night, I was at the West Indy Town Hall. It was attended by about 15 people mostly from the Cloverleaf area. Many thanks to our host, Pastor Larry Evans of Cloverleaf Baptist church. We had pizza and drinks and we shared the purpose of the meeting – Neighborhood Makeover). We had a brief brainstorming to identify the needs in the neighborhood. It was amazing to hear what the residents shared with everyone. Needless to say, everyone wants to get involved We were surprised by a Reporter from Indianapolis Star who stayed for the entire 1.5 hours to gather data for an article. The next planning meeting will be on Tuesday, March 20th at 7p. They will be identifying possible projects for FHL Week. For more info about the West Indy area, please contact Pastor Larry Evans at 317-750-1659.

Last night, I was at Martinsville Town Hall meeting held at JK’s Cheesecake Cafe. I did not know what to expect since this was a brand new area for FHL. As soon as I arrived there, we were greeted by our Host Jason & Shannon Suttles and 2 FHL volunteers. We set up the projector and sound system while people started to come. There were lots of finger food and drinks. Just before we got started, the room was full with more 20 people. I share the history of FHL and the purpose of the meeting – to answer the question “What would Martinsville look like we you could say, “God’s blessings is present and active here.” All the attendees answered the question; here are some answers (see the picture on top of this Blog): address the impoverish areas, neighborhood clean up, educating the youth to be more active and healthy, unity of churches, food pantry, prayer teams, etc. Later, I found out that there were Pastors, business people and community leaders present at the meeting. Everyone wants to get involved. The next planning meeting (purpose is to narrow down the possible projects) is tentatively scheduled on Friday, April 13th at JK’s Cheesecake Cafe located at 110. E. Morgan St 46151. For more information, please contact Shannon Suttles at 812-272-5451

For other FHL areas, please contact me at 317-578-3370. Looking forward to working with you in changing the world…in our community. Our next Town Hall meeting will be at Southport City Hall at 7pm on Monday, March 12th.

Courage to take action and receive the promise

March 8, 2012 Merlin Gonzales FHL Indiana, FHL Week

Today, March 7, 2012 I had the opportunity to attend and participate at 2 Areas (Pendleton/Anderson and West Indy). Tomorrow will be the Martinsville Town Hall meeting. I will share the results of these meetings by the end of this week.

I have said that I will share Taking the land story; here it is:

In Numbers 13, Moses instructed the 12 people to explore the land of Canaan to find out what the “Promised Land” look like. Moses wanted to know what’s the kind of soil, is it a fortified and walled city, and to bring specimen of fruits from the land. They found out that indeed, the land was flowing with milk and honey as promised by God dozens of year ago. However, they all saw that there were giants in the land.

The explorers came back to report to Moses. All of them saw all what’s good in the land and they all saw the giants. The 10 of the 12 explorers told Moses and the people not to go there because they will be annihilated by the people. However, 2 of the 12 (Caleb and Joshua) said that they can take possession of the land.

Here’s the application in our modern time:

We have to come together to once again explore our neighborhoods. We need to identify the needs and the resources and to mobilize our people to take our neighborhoods back. God told the people in Moses time to “take the land”. We are to take the land before the enemy take total control of it. We don’t have to look far to see neighborhoods that are deteriorating because of many things, some of them are non-participation of the residents or because of neglect. Some of them are immobilized by the giants such as drugs, violence, immorality and the feeling of helplessness.

In Numbers 13 and 14, there were 2 camps of people:

those who were afraid, those who did not want to take action and those who were not able to possess the Promised Land
and, those who believed in God against all odds, those who took the courage to take and received the promise

Whose camp are you?

Our generation is responsible for the next generation. If we don’t take back our neighborhoods, we will be driven out from it (both spiritually and physically). We can be a generation that will leave it to the next or the generation that will not settle until the promise has been received. I am for the latter generation that will take action to “take” the land, a generation that will change the course of history and will leave a legacy for the future generation.

Kingdom in the broken world

March 3, 2012 Merlin Gonzales FHL Indiana

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Neighborhood Makeovers

March 2, 2012 Merlin Gonzales FHL Week

Here we are in March and now talking about the neighborhood makeovers that will be happening during FHL Week on July 22-28, 2012. We have several communities who are interested in working together. These makeovers start with Town Hall meetings all around Central Indiana. We had 2 meetings already: Midtown and Martindale-Brightwood area. The next step is the formation of the leadership group. There will be Area Coordinators, Projects, Volunteers and other coordinators available at each community. Each area will start their planning meetings in March. Identification of needs is critical in conceptualizing projects and services to be performed during FHL Week. Next would be refining the realistic projects and then the gathering resources needed to accomplish the projects.
The beauty of this process is that we are training leaders to form their groups, formulate projects and services and getting connected with their respective communities. The end result would be relationship building and then the accomplishment of the projects. We have seen in the past that relationship one of the keys to have a successful neighborhood makeovers. Projects and services are tools to bring the community together. However, much is accomplished through the entire process.
It is exciting to see what could transpire when we are all communicating and working together.
The next Town Hall meetings (to explore opportunities to improve neighborhoods) are:
3/3 11a at FHL office (Hispanic community)
3/7 6:30p West Indy Town Hall at Cloverleaf Baptist 616 Mickley Ave.
3/8 7p Martinsville Town Hall at JK’s Cheesecake Cafe 110 E. Morgan St. 46151
March 19th at Southport IN City Hall 7p
March 28 at Beech Grove City Hall 7P

I hope you can join us at a meeting near you.