Word on the Street

From Charlie Sparkman

Isaiah 42:16 “I will lead the blind by a way they do not know. In paths they do not know I will guide them.” This is a promise we are seeing God fulfill. His guidance is for us to wait. As we wait, He has asked us to pray for our cities, because when the city prospers, its people prosper (Jeremiah. 29:7). Our prayerful intercession is for laborers and leaders to emerge from the 1.6 million people who work and live in the 8 major cities of Tidewater, Virginia: Chesapeake, Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Virginia Beach, and Williamsburg.

Wayne and Miriam Haddock have worked closely with the two new staff couples; Pastor Ed and Shirley Haywood, of Urban Community Church of Norfolk (UCCON) and Conley and Barbara White, walking them through “The Insider”. Our team is expanding and with it the reality of the vast brokenness of people all around us. Quoting Alan Andrews, “Only someone who has experienced the transforming power of the Spirit can be used to help bring transformation to people, neighborhoods, cities, and nations. Lifetime laborers are always growing, always being transformed into the likeness of Jesus. None of us has arrived. But to be a lifetime laborer does not take arriving, it just takes a willingness to be among the lost and broken and to live like Jesus among them.”

We have been contacting leaders and laborers among the lost and broken through Steve, who works at the VA Hospital in Hampton. Veterans in recovery for Drug and Alcohol abuse, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, and homelessness pass through Steve’s kinesiology clinic. Our vision is to stay involved for the long haul with those who become part of a group we call, “The Pit Crew,” based on Psalm 40:1. They are our teachers and we are the students. The original group of five (Todd, Scott, Anthony, Teri, and Mike) started last September. We also call them our “man on the street” as we feel sent with them to their community (Luke 10:1).

• “The Lord sends poverty and wealth; He humbles and He exalts. He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap.” (1 Samuel 2:7-8) Pray for hearts for the broken and personal awareness of our poverty as we join His works in progress here in Tidewater.
• Pray for future leaders, currently hidden from our view, to emerge through providential relationships for the Metro streams among the 20 somethings, campus, marketplace, and neighborhoods. (Lamentations 3:49-51, 55-56)