1,300 students are here this week, serving at Mission Arlington. Pictured here is the team from Fellowship Church, Neosho, Missouri. They are putting Easter eggs together for our big Easter egg hunt this April.

By Jim Burgin, staff writer

When Jesus entered into Jerusalem on the Sunday of Holy week, the historian Josephus tells us that 2 million people were in and around the city. Crowds gathered to worship the Lord as he entered the city on a donkey.  When he taught in the Temple during the week, hosts of people listened to him teach, and watched the religious leaders try to chip away at his integrity through a variety of tricks and traps.

Yet, Jesus’ eye had a way of seeing through the crowds to the needs of individuals.  One of his accusers was amazed, and also touched, by the Lord’s responses to the constant interrogations. Jesus told him that he wasn’t far from the Kingdom of God.  In the midst of the temple’s noisy clatter, and the constant motion from the swarms of people, Jesus notices a widow putting her tithe into the box. He gathers his disciples to teach them about the beautiful hearts in this world. “This woman,” he said, didn’t just give from her surplus, but with her “mite” had given more than all of the others put together.  In the midst of constant motion and crowded places, Jesus could see into the heart of individual people.

Mission Arlington® has had a busy week.  If you’ve been down to our place this week, then you will have noticed the buses, the flocks of students, (1,300 of them) young and old, volunteers from every corner of the Metroplex hustling and bustling to serve, and a host of people in need.  Literally thousands of people come in and through our front doors every day.  The weeks of Spring Break beautifully are among our busiest times. WE LOVE IT!

Yet, Mission Arlington®, as busy as things get, isn’t about the crowds, but about the Lord, and about the people.  We believe, and always hope to be, a “ministry of ones.”  Every life and each individual matters to our Lord, and therefore, to us.  We believe that anyone can hand out food and clothes, but our heart isn’t just to give things away, but to connect with each life.

A woman in her early 20s sat quietly at our back door early this week. She was thin and shaking, because it had been a while since she had anything to eat.  Because of her own choices, she admitted, she had come to a place in her life where she didn’t have a place to stay.  Her only transportation was an old bike.  She wondered if we might have something to eat?  Quickly, we gathered the food she needed, and asked her to let us help her find shelter.  She refused all help, but the food.  While she sat there, one of our volunteers sat quietly beside her, pouring love and encouragement into this young life.  We watched her ride the old bike out into the night.  It was just a moment in time, but many of us here are still praying for this young lady today.

Later in the week, a young man volunteering with us had a medical emergency. Andrea, our medical clinic director, was there in a flash, as was Tillie, our executive Director, and two staff members.  There was a tenderness in the hearts and hands of the team, as they held this young man until he was ok again. The family was called, and we transported him home.  “Holding people” when they have a moment of need in their lives, is really what we do best.  Every life matters to the Lord, so each and every life must matter to us. We talk about this here every day.

When I was a child, I had a Sunday school teacher who was fond of saying that someone was “too big for their britches.”  It must have been a common saying at the time, because I seemed to hear this said a lot. She meant by this that someone thought too much of themselves, or had become self-important, to the exclusion of others around them.  Occasionally, I was the subject of the conversation too, apparently needing a bit more humility in my life.

Sometimes when organizations grow, they become an institution or a bureaucracy. Patterns become codified, and somehow the numbers themselves become more important than the people.  Yet, it isn’t the numbers that matter to our Lord.  It’s his people.  Jesus died for the people. It was the people He came to save.   Tillie reminds the team here often that she “has never seen a number walk through the door” and that “there is never a life that can be thrown away.”  I am grateful to be part of a place  that is growing, and yet where the needs of people still matter.  This is still true here every single day.

May we never be “too big for our britches.”