Mission Dreams

Peace, Friends!

What an amazing month of February.  In terms of missions we exceeded my expectations in many ways.  We raised $5229.70 for Haiti.  Wow!  United Methodists together raised $11 million.  Wow!  (Check out www.umcor.org to see how that money is being spent.)  We also collected 50 health kits for Haiti.  This was all on top of our normal February commitment to Compassion Closet in which we collected many personal items (including a lot of toothpaste thanks to a quirky sermon illustration that required me to buy one of every kind of toothpaste).  Alongside the adults, Kid’s Creek collected 111 items for the Holt Food Bank.  Whew!  Thank you, God!

On top of all this we joined the Church of Greater Lansing’s Food Drop. (The Church of Greater Lansing is made up of several churches in the greater Lansing area.)  On this day having raised over $109,000, thirty-two churches gathered together for a worship and prayer rally at MSU auditorium and then dispersed into the greater Lansing area to deliver 2800 food boxes to families in need.  It was an amazing mission opportunity that spoke loudly to our community about the unity of Christian churches in Lansing.  We put aside our divisions (denomination, race, etc.) and served our community.  The next day, this event made the front page of the Lansing State Journal.  When the body of Christ unites the world notices.

While our collection of items and money this month exceeded my expectations, our involvement in the Food Drop left me asking some questions.  Besides contributing $1050 from our Christmas Eve offering (so good so far…), only six people showed up to deliver boxes.  Is this a problem?  I think we can do better than this, don’t you?  Perhaps SCC was experiencing some mission-fatigue from a busy month of collecting money and items, and yet this was the only time in February that we were asking our church to commit time to serving the community.  Perhaps we did not communicate well about what this mission opportunity really was.  How can we do better in the future?  Offer a suggestion on the blog (insert blog link on the word “blog”).

It is my hope and dream that we would be not just a church that collects money and items but a church that spends out time building friendships with the community by serving the financially poor and the poor in spirit.  I think we can do this.  I think we’re called to do it!  Overall this was a pretty amazing month.  What does God have in store for us in the coming months?  I suspect God-sized dreams.  Will you join in?

Peace,
Tom

P.S. I’m looking forward to beginning my plan to meet with everyone in our church one-on-one or in families.  I’m beginning with the beginning of the directory.  So if you’re last name begins with “A” (and I haven’t already met with you at some other time), expect to hear from Susan, our office manager, about a time when we can meet.  For more info on this, read about it here.