*This is the ninth installment in a series of articles that are designed to help unpack the practical implications of the We Have a Dream declaration that has been entrusted to us as a family of Friends here in Mid-America. Using Acts 2:17 as a holy compass, We Have a Dream seeks to discern and describe the specific directions that God is currently calling the people of EFC-MAYM to take so that the “dream of the gospel is lived out … in our local churches, in the communities where our churches serve, and in the family of churches called Evangelical Friends Church-Mid America Yearly Meeting.”
We have a dream that our properties, personal and corporate, be used 24/7 to bless the community around us, and even be used for community objectives. What if we had no spare rooms in our homes or church buildings? What if we all knew our neighbors across the street, and down the road, and across the tracks and helped them with their needs? What if our churches were like store-houses for ministry? What if God restored the broken and we could hand them the keys to our church vans and even our church buildings? (cf. Mt 25:14-30)
Several years ago I remember reading about a conversation between David Letterman and Leigh Nash, one of the founding members of the band Sixpence None the Richer. When asked about the origin of the band’s unusual name, Nash explained that it was inspired by the following passage from C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity:
Every faculty you have, your power of thinking or of moving your limbs from moment to moment, is given you by God. If you devoted every moment of your whole life exclusively to His service you could not give Him anything that was not in a sense His own already. So that when we talk of a man doing anything for God or giving anything to God, I will tell you what that is really like. It is like a small child going to its father and saying, “Daddy, give me sixpence to buy you a birthday present.” Of course, the father does, and he is pleased with the child’s present. It is all very nice and proper, but only an idiot would think that the father is sixpence to the good on the transaction.”
So then, one might be tempted to ask, if there is nothing we can give to God, or on behalf of God, no matter how grand, that will add one penny (or sixpence) to his pocketbook, why give at all?
Because we love God, pure and simple, and we want to use whatever resources he has graciously entrusted to us to love others in the same way he has loved us, not as an attempt to repay him, but as a natural expression of genuine, heartfelt gratitude for his amazing grace (cf. 1 John 3:16-18; 4:19).
That’s all fine and good, you say, but how do we flesh this out as the body of Christ here in Mid-America, i.e., what does this type of genuine, heartfelt, compassionate stewardship look like in the real world? Based on my recent travels, it looks a lot like Friends I have met here in Mid-America who …
- Offer their facilities as host sites for Family Promise, a compassionate ministry to the homeless in their local community.
- Give the keys to their buildings to their Hispanic friends so that Iglesia Amigos can gather for worship, fellowship and prayer in ways that are culturally relevant.
- Set aside meeting space for monthly sessions of the Church Leadership Institute for Ministry.
- Use their property to host Celebrate Recovery for those in their local community who are eager to find freedom from their hurts, habits, and hang-ups through the liberating power of Christ.
- Allow others to use their church vans free of charge for their own purposes.
- Make their facilities available for community-wide youth groups, kids clubs and Bible quiz teams.
- Invite local colleges to use their property for worship gatherings, class sessions and special events.
- Open their doors to the local community for blood drives, voting booths, prayer gatherings, scout troops, storm shelters, food pantries, medical clinics, parenting classes and much, much more.
- And it looks like many, many Friends I have met here in Mid-America who open their homes to family, friends, neighbors, co-workers and even to total strangers in order to provide a ministry of hospitality to all those who may need it.
This is a very short list, of course, and it represents only a small sampling of the types of things that are happening across EFC-MAYM, but I offer it in the hope of encouraging and inspiring our entire family of Friends here in Mid-America to continue to look for ways to bless our friends and neighbors with the material gifts that have been entrusted to each and every one of us by our good and beautiful God. He may not get any richer in the process, but the rest of us certainly will.
– David O. Williams, General Superintendent
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