The Generous Church

I have been so impressed by the generosity I see in the Church in these very trying times. Even where people are losing jobs and in the midst of real losses in retirement and investment funds, pastors I have spoken with have told me over and over again how generously their people are giving to and through the church. Now I have even more evidence of that generosity. I asked for the list of leaders of churches who were already paying their apportionments to the conference so we could offer them our thanks. As the thank you notes were printed, the stack of letters got larger, and larger, and larger until we ran out of paper! To this I say, praise God! We’ll order more paper and continue to give thanks for the generous and faithful Church God has called us to serve.

I have been serving as a pastor in this United Methodist Church for 24 years now and know the difficult decisions that pastors and leaders make in allocating the gifts entrusted to the church to pay the bills and do the work of ministry. The faithfulness of churches in making the decision to pay their apportionments in these difficult times astounds me. I asked one pastor about this and she said: “I’ve learned that God is faithful and supplies our needs. When we keep our priorities in order and meet our ministry responsibilities God provides for what we need to keep the church going.” And apparently God does, even when the economy is in the tank, provide faithfully and fully for our churches’ needs.

I pray that God will continue to meet our every need and use the church as a vehicle to demonstrate God’s faithfulness, God’s love, God’s mercy, and God’s provision. I am so grateful for the witness of the generous church to these attributes of our God. I am so grateful for you.