The average unchurched parent doesn’t lie awake at night wondering what some senior pastor is going to talk about next…but they do lie awake some nights wondering whether their kids are going to be all right.” – Carey Nieuwhof (careynieuwhof.com)

Yesterday we had the opportunity to join the leadership and elders of Gateway Church in their morning staff meeting and a special dinner in the evening. Several in the room are fresh back from a trip to India, and had incredible stories to share of how God is working in Mumbai and the surrounding regions. The leaders at Gateway are excited about the diversity they experience each Sunday at Gateway, and how they are positioned to impact further than the Dubai city limits.

Earlier this week during volunteer training, Christine paraphrased Carey Nieuwhof in saying the unchurched parent doesn’t lie awake at night wondering what the pastor down the road will preach this weekend; but they do lie awake wondering if their kid will be okay. This idea was brought up again in staff meeting by one of the elders who had been in attendance at the training, and was met as an “ah-ha” moment among the rest of the team.

As the thought settled in, one of the elders exclaimed, “That’s just like Jairus! He would not have come see Jesus on his own, but he would for his daughter!” Found in Mark 5, Jairus was constrained from following Jesus by his role as a synagogue ruler. But when his twelve year old daughter falls ill and dies, Jairus was motivated by the need within his family, and pursues Jesus even in a large crowd.

Last night at dinner, our team sat in an Arabic-style home, woven among the Gateway leadership, and talked about the church’s opportunity to become a place famous for loving broken families and making an invisible God visible. A day will come in the near future when parents in Dubai will say, “I don’t know what that church is preaching about this Sunday. But I know they love my kids, so I’m going to go find out.”

This blog post is part of a week-long series from an Orange Coaching team partnering with Gateway Church in Dubai. The team is comprised of the following church ministry specialists: Darren Kizer (Parker Hill Community Church, 1Semester) , Becky Kizer (Orange Specialist), Christine Kreisher (GT Church), and Stephanie Whitacre (Parker Hill Community Church, 1Semester).