At a stewardship meeting this fall Phyllis talked about a project Brentwood United Methodist Church had done where the church gave out money and people were to take God's money, multiply it and make it work for God's kingdom - Living a Better Story. At first hearing this sounded like a wacky idea - the church giving out money? Then, in thinking and talking about being good stewards of what God has given us, it made more sense. She thought our church would benefit from this project, but we lacked the funds. Before I thought about it, I said not to worry about how we would get the money - we should go ahead with it. Then came the check writing in Phyllis' office! Well, I thought I had done my part and that I would just sit back and watch how Living a Better Story would play out at FUMC. Alan and I received $30 at church a couple of Sundays later. My thought was just to donate this money to a good cause and then we'd be done. I asked my sister's family to join us to combine our funds. We now had $45. But people started asking me about my plans for multiplying God's money - I didn't want to tell that I had already donated. Hearing about others' money-making schemes and donations to good causes made me want to get more involved in the program. As I prayed and thought about it, I became aware of many needs in our community. I realized we had had a huge money multiplier in our closet - the loose change bottle! Alan and I agreed we'd use those funds for our project and we made $265 on change. Now we had $305 - $120 went to Adopt-a Classroom (kindergarten learning stations); $140 went to Area Relief Ministry for 2 new cots (Room in the Inn) and $45+ was used to buy nutritious snacks/drinks to put in 24 snack bags for the homeless coming to ARM Open Arms. My sister and her daughter helped me make up the bags and write Bible verses to put in them - we had fun filling and decorating them. It was a joy to deliver that check and those snack bags on Monday morning. I am now more likely to pay attention to people's needs and respond to God's "little nudges." God has blessed me and my family in so many ways - it feels good to be giving back what belongs to Him. Experiencing Living a Better Story with my church family has been an amazing experience and you all cannot imagine the return Iwe've gotten on God's money!
No comments:
Post a Comment