Confession 290: Monday Blessings-Small But Mighty

The United Methodist Church’s annual service weekend (SERVE) happened this past weekend. The idea behind SERVE is for the church to get out of the building and to engage in mission projects throughout the community. Our local church is actually doing our SERVE projects this coming weekend. And, I’m very excited!! In fact, I might have given a “whoop-whoop” when talking about it during worship this past Sunday. 🙂

I love mission. And, my husband and I are extremely blessed to be serving in a mission loving church. While our congregation might be small (we average around 100 in worship per week) we are mighty when it comes to service.

Here are some of the ways we’ve served our community (local and global) over the past 4 years:

1. Donated a gift ark worth $5000 to Heifer International

2. Made and sent 35 dresses to Little Dresses for Africa

3. Raised in one week of VBS over $1600 for Imagine No Malaria

4. Donated over 200 pairs of shoes to a local shoe project

5. Stocked our local backpack program for the year–twice

6. Helped to sponsor a child’s education through The Rainbow Network

This coming weekend we will hold a clothing giveaway, make and serve meals to several families within our local community, beautify our community, assist the school district in repairs needed at the football stadium, and host a benefit dinner to assist a local family whose house was recently destroyed by fire. Our children are making crafts and will be distributing them to the local nursing home, visiting with residents there.

I know this all reeks a bit of braggadocio, and I am very proud to be part of our congregation. However, the real message for me is that there are no excuses when it comes to showing the love of Jesus Christ to a world in need. Jesus calls us to serve. And it doesn’t matter how old (or young) we are, how much money we have, the skills we have (or don’t have), the time we have… we ALL have something to give. And when we work together in the name of Jesus there is NO LIMIT to what we can accomplish!!

Scripture shows us over and over again that when we give God what little we have, He multiplies it exponentially. There are no limits to God’s ability to work through us. Therefore, we should not limit ourselves in our willingness to serve.

SERVE the Lord with gladness…. Psalm 100:2

I love this promo created by the United Methodist Church a few years ago, entitled “Rethink Church”. It is my prayer that we, as congregations, can strive to live this out. Check it out.