The White Bucket Project

This last week was amazing! My wife and I had the incredible opportunity of spending a week working in New York with Pastor Brad & Stella Reed, then shoot home for a wedding and 2 baby showers and back to wonderful LA. Dawn's second shower was in Grand Rapids, and since we had to drive up there anyway we decided to check out Rob Bell's church Mars Hill, it only seemed fitting after the nightly conversations with the Reed's in NY about church models, concepts and idea's about building community, to check out a church who is known for it.

There I was introduced to "The White Bucket Project," a concept that, though simple, amazed me.

Here is what they did. They took these white buckets and put a bunch of cash in them. They put them all around the stage at the church, then encouraged anybody from the church who had money to give, to help out, to go up front and put money in the buckets... then they encouraged anybody who had a need, or knew of a practical need that could be filled with finances, to simply come up front, and grab a handful of money. They did this the week before I visited, and the week I was there they were reading testimonies of where the money went, one lady paid her sisters rent that she wasn't able to make last month, another lady bought 7 pairs of shoes for the children in a large family who's shoes had completely been warn out and there was no money to get more... story after story, it amazed me. It was totally the church of acts lived out in our modern day hurting world... everyone coming together and sharing their possessions, helping each other out.

I live and work at the Dream Center in Los Angeles, CA. Anybody who knows me knows that this church model has absolutely challenged and changed my thought process on what church is suppose to be in the last year... it literally has changed my life, even my dreams are more connected to purpose because of all the good that goes on every single day at this amazing place... it was just encouraging to be on the road and find a church doing something similar, taking care of the community in their own unique way... and in a way that requires a mindset to be faithfully built into its members over a long period of time... a concept of community, of loving and taking care of each other in the ways that we need it and to not be selfish with what we may have, because its all God's anyway.

The letters of testimonies I heard this weekend reminded me a lot of the stories we hear at Christmastime when we do the "Dreams do come True" presentations. Peoples lives touched and changed by the generosity not of the church, but of its people, who find needs and fill them, because that is the church, its not suppose to be a big daddy, its suppose to be a lot of people coming together and serving God and the common good of man, meeting needs, and loving people. Living life together... I always say after those nights, "I wish the church as a whole could see this, and catch onto this concept of loving people without an agenda... taking care of the ones who may never be able to do a single thing to repay you."
What an encouragement to see others spreading the same kind of love.

So I was impressed by Mars Hill and the generosity of the Christian community it has raised up in Grand Rapids, MI.