It's About The Gumballs

Call me crazy, but everywhere that I go I see gumballs! You might go as far as to say that I am obsessed with gumballs. I rarely chew gum and hardly ever buy any, yet, everytime I go to a public place I see gumballs. There is actually nothing more important to me than gumballs. Please allow me to explain.

I am a missionary at heart. Leaving West Africa did not mean that I left the mission field, it merely meant that I woke up in a different field that was surrounded by green grass and cornfields rather than the red earth of Africa. West Africa was replaced by West/Central Indiana. There are 44,000 people in my mission field of Putnam County and by my estimation nearly 30,000 of them cannot be found in a church anywhere in the county on any given Sunday morning. This revelation so impacted my heart that I had to find some way to share it with others. I needed a way to visually remind the members of my congregation of our mission. I purchased two six foot tall plastic tubes with a diameter of six inches. The two tubes were mounted onto a display and 28,579 gumballs were poured into them. That display has stood on the platform of our church now for over three years. Those gumballs serve as a reminder to us every Sunday of what God has called each and everyone of us to do.

Since the first Sunday morning that our congregation filled those tubes, I have seen gumballs everywhere that go! Missio Dei for my life is to remind the church of the reason we are all still here -- gumballs!