Meet Kelly

It has been a long time since I posted something. So I thought I would start posting again on a regular basis...

I want you to meet my fictional friend, Kelly...
For those that know me, don't try to figure out who Kelly is. She is a summation of many different people I have known in my life.

Meet Kelly… Kelly is a single mother of 2. She has never been married, and her 2 girls have 2 different fathers who doesn’t want anything to do with them.
She goes out with her friends on weekends and is looking for love in all the wrong places. She has a minimum wage job that will only work her 25 hours a week. She is renting a runned down trailer off a slum lord. Her trailer has windows broken out, a leaky roof, and pipes under the sink that leak…and the land lord has refused to fix them, but she doesn’t want to move because she can’t find anything else around for $150 a month. She struggles to keep her utilities on, and has learned how to play the system. She knows which agencies will help her and which ones won’t. She knows when the food pantry opens, and the workers at DHHR know her on a first name basis. A treat to her is finding enough change in the couch cushions to take her 2 girls to McDonalds to buy something off the dollar menu.

She lies awake at night, and thinks back to her days in high school. She was popular, she was a cheerleader, captain of the volleyball team, and could have any guy she wanted. She had plans on going to college to be a LPN. And made good grades.
Her life was bright, and happy… until that day the nurse at the health department told her she was pregnant. IF only she hadn’t went out with him!

She wonders is there anything in this life worthwhile, will her life get any better? What will her daughters grow up to be like. There has got to be a way out of this, but how?

What would you say to Kelly if you met her?

Read 1 Samuel 22:1-2 – “So David departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam; and when his brothers and all his father’s household heard of it, they went down there to him. Everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented gathered to him; and he became captain over them. Now there were about four hundred men with him.”

Did you catch that?
David took a bunch of misfits and created a mighty army out of them.
David took a bunch of "Kellys" and created a mighty army out of them.

He took people in trouble, people who were in debt, and people who were miserable in life...
He discipled them and made them into warriors...
Here is what 1 Chronicles 12:21-22 says about them (21) And they helped David against the band [of the rovers]: for they [were] all mighty men of valour, and were captains in the host.
(22) For at [that] time day by day there came to David to help him, until [it was] a great host, like the host of God.


David was a picture of Jesus, and since the church is Jesus' body, David was simply doing what the church should be doing...

We should be looking for the "Kellys" in our life...
Who knows what would happen if the church would reach out to the "Kellys."

All we have to do is look around to find misfits… like Kelly in the Opening illustration..
They are our next door neighbors.
They are our friends
They are the cashiers at our favorite stores..
They are the people behind the counters at the fast food restaurant.
They are your family..
They are the ones that pass you by on the street…

They won’t tell you their problems, but when they lay in bed at night, that is all they can think of.

David took a bunch of misfits and turned them into a mighty army…
David was a picture of Jesus…
Jesus is doing the same thing…
Matthew 11:28 nlt
(28) Then Jesus said, "Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.

Effective churches are the ones that realize this principle…