Christ Community Chapel’s Love Like Crazy Bible study is a women’s laboratory for living out the truth that God is love. The group states, “He loves us with a crazy, radical, unconditional love.” On reading the book Crazy Love by Francis Chan, the Love Like Crazy ladies grasped that “love is an action and being a follower of Christ means loving God and loving people.” This lines up with CCC’s Gospel-driven call to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our God.
The Bible study consisted of four teams, each of which committed to serving a different ministry organization outside the CCC walls. One team partnered with Urban Vision in North Akron. Urban Vision seeks to glorify Christ by restoring its community one child and one family at a time.
Recently, one of the concepts Pastor Joe Coffey presented as a way we could do justice was to help Urban Vision buy and rehabilitate homes to help local families own their own dwelling at an affordable price. Urban Vision also teaches the families the needed life skills for budgeting and home ownership.
Urban Vision’s neighbors in need include about 600 of the Karen people group, one of Asiatic origins, that are starting a new life in the Akron area. (See a previous blog post here.) They have been persecuted in their homeland, and have been granted asylum in the U.S. However, many times their landlords charge them excessive rent, while failing to provide basics such as running water. To counter this injustice, the Love Like Crazy team recently decided to literally take up Pastor Joe’s challenge and is raising money to purchase a home in North Akron, setting a goal of $20,000.
The Love Like Crazy team is encouraging people to purchase a Love Like Crazy necklace, as all proceeds go directly into the fund to purchase a home.
Clearly, the Love Like Crazy ladies are, as a group, showing how the Gospel of God’s love must not only penetrate our minds, but also prompt our hearts and hands to serve, since love is an action.
So, what does it look like when the Gospel transforms an individual believer in a deeper way? One lady, after serving at Urban Vision with the Bible Study, felt the call to organize 20 people on her own during Spring break to help Urban Vision clean its facility.
Are you loving like crazy? In addition to purchasing a Love Like Crazy necklace, you might consider making a separate donation, or perhaps even to offer to match funds that are raised for the Urban Vision housing effort. For more information on ways to engage, contact any of the following people:
Carla Gasser: lovelikecrazyccc@gmail.com (330.703.0632)
Esther Morse: lovelikecrazyccc@gmail.com (330.603.6463)
Barbara Ammirati: Barbara.Ammirati@ccchapel.com (330.573.5951)
Urban Vision: www.urbanvisionministry.org
Urban Vision: www.urbanvisionministry.org
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