The Personal Touch
by Dennis Jaeger
One thing we have all witnessed firsthand throughout the world’s battle withCOVID is the importance of a personal touch. Impact’s Resource Center wentfrom having people inside with handshakes, discussions, and face-face-faceconversations to a drive-through line with a quick hello. The impact this had on our ability to minister to the many needs represented among those coming for food was detrimental – especially their spiritual needs. Baptisms diminished. Life-changing stories diminished. But now that we’re once again able to talk with people face-to-face and spend time listening and understanding, the results are obvious. Lives are changing daily.
This is no more evident than in the number 135. This is an important number to us because each of those numbers represent an individual who has been baptized into Jesus since October of 2022. Individuals who felt seen. Individuals who felt heard. Individuals who felt loved. Individuals who encountered Jesus and weren’t satisfied with a one-time encounter. Individuals who came to know Jesus through the plethora of ministries and servants at Impact.
Jesus encountered many crowds. But to Jesus, the multitudes weren’t just a seaof faces. Jesus sees. Jesus knows. He knows the ups and downs. He knows the individual struggles. He knows the emotions. Would we even have the gospel of Matthew if Jesus hadn’t peered into the life of a lonely Jewish tax-collector named Levi and touched him personally in the middle of a large crowd? If we are to follow his example, we must continue to be people who take the time for personal touches. We must see the tree in the forest and all its knots, missing nutrients, amount of sunshine, branches needing trimmed, and predators making a home under the bark.
Let’s continue to be a people who seek personal touches and, in so doing, continue to introduce those whose paths we cross to the Jesus we all so desperately need
