Are you tired of hearing about this fundraising campaign that we’re doing yet?
No?
Good. Because we’re going to talk about it quite a bit throughout the next three and a half years. But for this newsletter, I want to talk about why we’re doing this. I’ve never been part of a congregation that has celebrated a huge milestone like the one we’re about to. I’ve been intrigued by watching other churches from a distance do these kinds of celebrations and how insular, how self-centered the celebrations seem to be.
We are not a self-centered congregation at the heart of who we are. It may be hard for people to get to know us or even know where we’re located, but we are a congregation who has such a deep and rich history of giving to the community we’re situation in. I didn’t want our milestone celebration to ignore that beautiful legacy we have been left. So God planted what I call a “crazy idea” in my head.
We’re a congregation that focuses on love. We focus on hope, on joy, on celebration often. And in the last ten or so years, we’ve forgotten some of that. We’ve had to focus inward in order to survive and to really dig down deep to find out who we are. It has not been an easy time for us.
But you know what? We’re at the end of that tumultuous time. We’re finally finding our footing, our strengths, and that legacy that was left to us, and we’re looking at how we can continue that legacy beyond today and tomorrow.
The “crazy idea” has blossomed. It has thrived. And it’s beyond what I ever could have imagined. Yes, some of us are very tired this month, but you know what? That’s okay. There’s an ebb and flow to ministry, a turning up and down of the heat. It’s time for us to let it simmer, the excitement, the vision, the campaign. It’s time for us to see where we’ve come from and where we can go from here. And I can’t wait to see just how much money we can actually raise for U. S. I.
Let’s carry on this legacy that we’ve been given, the vision of helping to care for others, of doing everything in love (1 Cor 16:14).