Building Bridges

I think for the first nine-years of inner-city ministry here I had a plan to reach the inner-city kids of Houston with the CAT Truck. I would wake up in the morning and say, “I’m going to the inner-city today and find a place to start a service.” It was like I would just drive by a project and say, “Okay here it is, let’s put the CAT Truck over there in that parking lot where those guys are dealing drugs.” I remember one Christmas Eve we did a service in a parking lot in front of a liquor store with prostitutes turning tricks on the side.

---

Over 150 kids heard the Gospel preached in that parking lot with many salvations at the altar call in freezing windy weather as the sun was going down. All of this was happening while people were there drinking and getting high.

In the early days when I went to the inner-city I would always go alone. Like Nehemiah when he had a burden to restore the walls of Jerusalem. He went alone, not wanting his enemies to realize what he was planning or even thinking. I would go out into some of the worst areas of the City and just drive and walk the streets and talk to people I passed. When I would come to a particular project or place in the community I could see the CAT Truck sitting there and get a peace from God that this was the place we needed to be. When I would get that conviction I never thought about how we would do it or where would the money come from or who would help? All that I knew was it needed to be done and that was it. You know if I thought about those other things like a lot of people do it never would have happened. I have had to learn like everybody else just to trust God and do his will. The Bible says, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.” Mathew 6:33.

Well it’s been thirteen years since the founder of this ministry David Ellis went to be with the Lord. Before he went he told me, “Pastor Scott I trust you will do the work.” Well I think when he told me that I didn't really understand what he meant. I think I understand better now as when Paul said by the Spirit in Philippians 2:12-13, “Wherefore my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you to will and to do his good pleasure.”  Just do the works knowing that God works in you and trust him so you will have the honor of being part of what you could have never achieved yourself for his glory.

Amazingly our ministry has become a base camp and training ground for college and high school students that will be involved in short-term mission trips in the inner-city of Houston this Spring Break and throughout the summer of 2014. Students and many others including church groups will join us as we go into our ministry sites. It is truly wonderful to behold what God is doing and is going to do in our inner-city communities.

One of our chief goals will be to impress on these students this year that their jobs and work are just as important to God as someone who serves in a full time ministry like ours.  What we desperately need in our nation are individuals that would live out their faith wherever God sends them and that they will see their secular employment as a mission field.

We estimate this year that we will minister to well over 300 high school and college aged kids through short-term mission trips and meetings. All of these kids will make their way with us into the inner-city where the kids living there will benefit from their love and compassion. It speaks volumes about God’s love when they have these college and high school kids care enough to come see them where they live and get involved in their lives even if it is just for a short time. He has built a bridge here in this ministry that will literally be used by Him to transform our world and encourage young people everywhere to serve God in the places he sends them.