Posted: 10/01/04
TOGETHER:
Offerings make an eternal difference
Good news, Texas Baptists. Your gifts to the Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas Missions are 25 percent ahead of last year and 185 percent ahead for September.
That's good news for the people along the Rio Grande who benefit from our River Ministry efforts. And it is encouraging to Texas Baptists who are starting new churches. We hope to help start 300 new churches next year, and your offerings and Cooperative Program gifts will help make that possible.
If you are not familiar with all the good that happens because of your gifts through the Mary Hill Davis Offering, please check with your church office or Woman's Missionary Union leaders in your church for more information, visit www.maryhilldavis.org–or just keep reading the Baptist Standard, where you will find stories about how your gifts and prayers make a dramatic and eternal difference in the lives of people across Texas. If you haven't given yet, please do.
| CHARLES WADE Executive Director BGCT Executive Board |
Years ago, a great flood hit a community where I was a pastor. Nine people died. The entire community was overwhelmed. On the Sunday following the flooding, I told our church: “Just because we cannot do everything that is needed is no excuse to do nothing. Let us give what we can and also go to these families who have lost their homes and be there with them to help clean up the damage and put their lives back together again.” They did. People were blessed. And our church was changed.
We have all been praying for the people whose lives and property have been devastated by the series of huge hurricanes along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Our Texas Baptist Men have been there from the beginning. They have gone and come back and gone again … and again!
Many already have sent special gifts to the disaster relief fund. The need has continued to increase because of the recurring nature of this season's hurricane pattern. You can give directly or through your church to the BGCT's disaster relief fund. We will get the money to those who are helping and those who need the help.
Every year about this time, many of our churches also encourage their members to give to the Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger. Materials were mailed to your church recently so you can see the variety of ways that Texas Baptists support hunger ministries in Texas and around the nation and world.
Our basic approach is to work with those who are helping feed people and who are also helping people to feed themselves.
Why do Christians care about these matters and these people? You only have to look at Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. He cared, and he taught us to care. And he taught us that when we meet human needs, we are showing love to him.
Our Lord makes it such a blessed thing to give, that Christians have testified over and over again, "No matter how much I give, he repays with more." I heard a friend say, "Even when I try to make a sacrificial gift, he winds up blessing me so much that the sacrifice is swallowed up in gratitude."
When Christians give regularly, generously and faithfully, their spiritual lives are enriched and deepened. I love to remind our Texas Baptist people that your gifts are making a huge difference … in many people's lives–and not least in your own.
We are loved.
We seek to connect God’s story and God’s people around the world. To learn more about God’s story, click here.
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