Pastor's Blog: Living With Generosity
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Our church is one of the most generous congregations I’ve ever known. We are blessed with members who give passionately of their time, talents, and resources to advance the cause of Christ in our community and throughout the world. As a result, our church has been able to do important work in bringing God’s Kingdom purposes to pass. But can we do more? As we consider how we have been implementing many of the new ministry dreams that have come out of the adoption of our Vision 2020 plan and are contemplating more ministry dreams, we sense that the realization of our vision will require an even stronger expression of generosity.
This Sunday, our church will hold our second “Generosity Sunday.” On this Sunday we’ll invite our members to reflect gratitude for the hope we have in Christ by making a generous “special offering” toward the ministries of our church. This offering will be above our regular commitments as a means of not only offering a bold statement of our appreciation for God’s abundant blessings, but also of our conviction that He has so much more for us to do. This emphasis is designed simply to heighten the level of excitement in our church over how God honors the generosity of His people, and to assure each of us that no one has to miss out on any part of it. Generosity manifests itself in many ways, but every way can lead to the same level of joy.
This year’s emphasis will focus on local missions partners. Included with this letter is a devotional guide that we invite you to use as a prayer resource for the work our church supports in our area. Additionally, 10% of what we receive on Generosity Sunday will go to MPower ministries, one of our local missions partners. The other 90% will be allocated to the other ministries of our church as reflected in our General Fund budget.
So, be in prayer as we approach this significant Sunday. Pray for your own participation, as well as for everyone else’s in our church, because every gift is important to the realization of our church’s vision. Only with widespread participation can we move closer to making our vision become a reality, which is a goal surely all of us can support, and do so with great generosity.
You can use the online prayer guide by clicking HERE.
“Just as you excel in everything…see that you also excel in this grace of giving” (2 Corinthians 8:7).