Pastor Urges Church to 'Be the Message' to Liberia
HOUSTON -- The pastor of a Houston mega-church sent his congregation packing this Sunday -- literally.
Kerry Shook, pastor of Woodlands Church, cut his message short and asked members to go pack bags of food for Africans trying to survive the Ebola crisis.
"We cut the sermon in half and now we're living the sermon. We're packing 200,000 meals to go to West Africa, the Ebola-affected areas, where people are really starving because they can't get food because they're quarantined," Pastor Shook said.
People of all ages made their way to the packing stations, 70 of them in rooms around the church campus.
They packed rice, soy protein and vitamin-enriched dehydrated vegetables, with each bag providing a highly nutritious meal for as many as six people.
The Woodlands Church is urging all its members to get busy meeting the needs of others.
The slogan is everywhere -- on staff T-shirts, banners and a display of Shook and his wife Chris's most recent book, Be the Message.
The Shooks are encouraging other pastors around the country to cut their message short on Nov. 16 and send their congregations out to help their neighbors -- or serve needy people a world away.
