Grace Gives Back

Wow, what an incredible day we had yesterday in church. If you missed it, you truly missed a blessing. God challenged our entire church to go out & be a blessing to those outside our circle. A few months ago God laid on my heart an emphasis to empower our people to bless others. As a staff we decided to schedule a Sunday where, instead of receiving an offering as we do every week in our morning worship service, we would give what we normally receive away.

I went to our Finance Team & requested the money. We took the money(several thousand dollars) & divided it into increments from $5 to $500. I wrote a letter explaining the project & we inserted the money into envelopes w/ the letter. I preached a message from Matthew 25:14-30 on the Parable of the Talents. Then I explained, much to the shock of most, we wouldn't be taking the offering instead we would be giving it away. I told them it was the ONLY Sunday they were to take something out of the offering baskets rather than put something in.

I spent time explaining the purpose of why we were doing it & gave these rules:

• You must use this money to bless someone outside your circle (not your closest family, friends, or fellow church members)
• Tell us what you did with your money so we can use your story of generosity to bless others.

During the time of invitation the altar was flooded w/ individuals, couples, & families surrendering to God. God opened many eyes to the vast array of needs around us everyday that we miss or choose to ignore. This project will hopefully make us more aware of the hurting & needy around us & how easy it sometimes is to be a blessing in Jesus name. We're collecting the stories of how God is using this & we plan on sharing them over the next few months.

Throughout this week I hope to share more details of the process of making the decision to do this & the desired impact it can have on our community. We pray this is the beginning of a brand new chapter in the life of our church.