Lessons From Respite

Written By Ferdinando (Turk) Turkovich

        Being at CCDA was like coming off the battle lines for a hot meal, a hot shower and a change of clothes.
 
    After coming back from the Christian Community Development Association Conference (CCDA), I feel like I have finally found my "war" to fight.  Don’t get me wrong, I am a believer in Jesus Christ and therefore a son of Father God first and foremost. But I am also a warrior.  I just battle differently.  My weapons are not made with human hands, but are instead powered by God (2Corinthians 10:4).

         Up until this last year or so I felt like I was drifting listlessly from one failed endeavor to another. I always believed that God had placed a calling on my life, but I just didn't know what or where that was. I do now after being with the team at CCDA.  What I heard from the stage and in the workshops, was confirmation for what we do in our little community here in Aliquippa. That it is in fact the work of the Lord.

       We live and minister out of relationship. One of our key roles is to be ministers of reconciliation.  As ministers of reconciliation we are keenly aware of the current divides that we face as racial tensions come to the boiling point in our nation.  We can see the injustice and fear that seems to press in on all sides.  We can hear the cries of the marginalized from within even our own team.  Cries against injustice, cries against the work of the enemy.  But we can be agents of hope, hope set in knowing that our father cries alongside us, for us, and within us.

     I found rest and a recharge at the conference; I found excitement and awe; I found kinship and rejuvenation.

     It was there that I found confirmation that Church Army can and should be speaking, teaching, and encouraging our brothers and sisters across the nation and dare I say world. Speaking on how we do what we do, within the context of reaching the least the last and lost with the Gospel and bringing them into the service of the church.  What we do and how we do it works.  And if we look across the scope of all Church Army, we are each playing a vital role in the communities in which God as placed us.  I sense God’s call on us to become united and help lead the charge for those coming after us.  The Apostle Paul did this with several young men.  Timothy being one of them.  He then established him in leadership.  I ask myself, who am I preparing to replace me?  How can we leave those that come after us in a better place to launch instead of having to rebuild?  All of this has caused me to reflect and slow down.  To stop and look around at the gifts of people that are around me (since I can only speak for myself).  What am I leaving them in terms of relationships?  What are the connections that I am sharing with them, am I hoarding those relationships or am I living out of the belief that there is plenty in the Kingdom of God? These can be hard questions to ask and sometimes even harder to accept the answers. 

       So following the CCDA conference I came home with a lot of questions.  But I was also reminded of something one of my Commanding Officers once told us as a unit in the dwindling hours prior to battle: “take it as you were given, and leave it better than you received it.”  In saying this he left out the parts that I would often complain about.  By accepting it as it is, I am therefore accepting it as a gift and if a gift then looking at it all of its potential.  That is how I see Church Army Moving towards its potential in unification.