MANA - Spiritual Life Center

Observations from an outsider………

Why do we need a church run community center in Lithuania?

View of the front out the upstairs window

Recently I have had the opportunity to visit many social services provided here for the people of this country. There is much available to them in the way of resources to meet physical needs. Social welfare, children’s homes, homeless shelters, psycological care, elder care etc. All the things you would expect to find in any developed and developing country. All during this time of visiting “centers” my mind kept going back to “What is the basic problem here?” One organization works to fix the individual while another works to fix the family, yet another helps to keep family members apart if necessary. Was it more education in prevention that was needed? Better availability of recsources? More resourses? Better structure of the resourse already provided? These questions pervaded my mind.

To me the main point was that the individual needed help. As I visited each place I began to take a mental step back and see that maybe it was the family who needed to make major adjustments in thinking in order to make a difference in the individual’s life and the next step back was the culture who might need a shift in its thinking and actions if any real change were to take place and then it all made sense. We can continue to provide a bandage to this oozing and festering wound by providing counsiling, shelters and homes for this country’s people, but the healer is what is really needed here. Yes, the physical is very important, but this country needs God. And not just any god. They need the loving power of Jesus Christ. What better way to combine the physical needs of the people of this country with the God who is the only one who can bring the peace being desparately searched for here by opening a community center run by Christiains willing to pour their lives into those who will come and recieve such a thing. This country needs this community center……..and City Church is willing to run it!