And a little child shall lead them

I got this email from our Children's Minister, Josh Antonopulos, earlier today:

Yesterday morning, just before Kid’s City worship began, a mom of one of our Arcade Alley students shared with me about her son’s excitement for the 30 pieces of silver offering.  Her family will not be able to join us on Easter Sunday and her son wanted to make sure that not only were each and every one of the 30 pieces of silver counted out and bagged securely, but that he was able to turn his offering in! She then pointed to her purse, which contained another 30 pieces of silver, which was his parents’ offering-he had also counted, bagged and secured their offering earlier in the week. It was refreshing to hear from a mom about her son’s drive & urgency not only to share, but to make sure every piece of silver was given!

How cool is it that our Kid's City kids are thinking about the 30-pieces of silver offering that we're collecting this coming Sunday! (I wrote about this special offering in a recent post that you can read here.) 

If you're reading this, you're probably making plans to gather with us at South Lansing Christian Church this Easter Sunday. Here's what I want you to know:

First, if this Sunday is your first time here, we aren't one of those arm-twisting, ask-for-money-all-the-time churches. If you want to contribute this Sunday you're welcome to do so, but nobody is going to think twice if you don't. We want the Easter gathering to be our gift to you.

Second, if you're part of the SLCC family already and have been praying about your 30-pieces gift, we want you to know that we're praying, too. We are praying that God will bless you beyond what you imagined was possible. We're praying that - as you honor God with your generosity - that He will enable all of us to see the difference our giving makes, not just in others' lives but in our own.

SLCC members will also be receiving a financial update in the mail this week. It is the first of our four yearly updates that we send out after each quarter. It will contain an offering envelope that you can use this Sunday. And it will serve as another reminder to pray for this special effort.

Of course, if you have any questions, please email us by clicking here.

30 Pieces of Silver Offering

We all love to know the difference our giving makes. If you have given to SLCC recently, here are some of the ways your gifts have made a difference:

• So far this year five people have been baptized and four others have joined our church!
• A team of six from SLCC traveled to Chile to support our missionaries in Santiago. We taught church leaders, worked in a Vacation Bible School with 125 children and made repairs to a church building.
• Through our Blessing Buckets we provided a bus pass for a member, bought a gas card so a gentlemen could visit his sick mother, helped the friend of a member with her mother’s funeral expenses, and much more.
• We paid the registration fees for our Modified volunteers so they attend last week’s Statewide Youth Rally where they deepened their investment in our high school student’s discipleship.
• We engaged with Capital Area Community Services to pack food boxes for the Holt Community Food Bank. So many of our members and friends participated that CACS set up another “assembly line” for the day! Our church provided pizza for all the volunteers, including those not from SLCC.

Knowing that your giving makes a difference makes it easy to get excited about our upcoming 30 Pieces of Silver Offering. You might recall this special Easter offering that we have taken up in years past. We needed previous 30 Pieces offerings to help our general fund keep afloat. This year, however, we have a chance to do more than just catch up; we have a chance to move ahead in three specific ways:

1. The first 10 percent, a tithe of our 30-pieces offering, will go directly to our Blessing Buckets. Our deacons have been working to help a homeless individual find housing. We have developed a sustainable plan that requires a security deposit and first month’s rent. This offering will infuse our Blessing Buckets with enough money so we can make this Easter an amazing one for a (formerly) homeless person. (Cost: $1000-1400)
2. We also want to update the Kid’s City check-in computers. Recently we broke a Sunday morning record with 86 kids and Kid Builders in Kid’s City. If you’ve checked kids in, you know that some Sundays are hectic. Our check-in computers are 15 years old, and often crash. New computers will provide greater reliability. They will also enable our regular attenders to self-register their children, so our Kid’s City staff can focus on assisting first-time guests in registering their kids. (Cost: $2500)
3. Finally, we would like to replace the video projector in the worship center. Since buying our current projector seven years ago, South has become considerably more visually oriented in our worship services. We show videos regularly, and we use images for singing and sermons every week. Like all things electronic, video projectors have come a long way in seven years. The latest LCD technology allows brighter, bolder, crisper images and would be a big improvement to the worship gathering. (Cost: $12,000-15,000)

That’s how we plan to spend it, but how do we plan to collect it? The night before he was crucified, Jesus was betrayed for 30 pieces of silver. This offering is our way of saying that we choose a different path. Rather than betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, we choose to honor Jesus with 30 pieces of silver. We’re asking that, in addition to your normal tithe, you bring “30 more” with you on Easter Sunday. We're asking our children to bring 30 nickels or 30 dimes. Older children who earn money for help around the house that might be able to donate 30 quarters. You might want to raid your change jar and bring silver, but maybe you can do even more. $30 extra from every adult on Easter Sunday will make a difference. An even bigger impact would be for you to bring thirty ten or twenty dollar bills. Or imagine dropping a check in the offering for 30 hundred-dollar bills - $3000! If a handful of generous Jesus followers do that, this offering will accomplish each of our three goals and more!

It is exciting to be able to collect this “above-and-beyond-offering,” because it is about more than just treading financial water. The reason we’re able to do something special with this offering is because of your generous weekly offerings that have enabled us to pay our staff, partner with our missionaries, and do ministry here in Lansing and beyond. We’re able to do more than just “catch up” because our staff and finance teams make sure we are careful in our spending and that we don’t outpace our giving. Because of their responsible stewardship – and yours, too – we can direct this special offering to three initiatives that will help us take some positive steps forward.

Thanks for taking a moment to think about how you can contribute to this special offering, and thanks for praying about the gift that God wants you to bring on Easter Sunday. As always, we invite you to contact us with any questions you might have. Call me at 517-394-3220 or email me at frank@seekstudyserve.org. You can reach our elders at elders@seekstudyserve.org, or our finance team at finance@seekstudyserve.org.

You can even give online by clicking here. Thanks for your generosity!

"Why?"

As a staff, we are working our way through the book Start with Why by Simon Sinek. Recently, Frank challenged all of us to think about why we minister and to craft a summary of those thoughts. Here is my three-part “why.”   

I am a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ first because I believe certain things. Secondly I minister because I have reasons to believe those things. Finally I am a minister because of the hope I have in Christ Jesus.

I believe in God the Three-in-One. By God’s power the world was created (Gen. 1:1) and exists today (Col. 1:17, 2 Pet. 3:7). I believe that humans were created to glorify God, but instead chose to disobey him (Gen. 3), a disobedience which continues to characterize humans today (Rom. 3:23), and is punishable by death (Rom. 6:23). I believe that Jesus Christ carried out God’s redemption plan for mankind by sacrificing himself for us (Rom 5:8). I believe that he is God, that he rose again from the dead, and that he ascended into heaven (Mt. 28, Acts 1). I believe that Jesus Christ will return (Acts 1:11), and God will judge the living and the dead (Mt. 25). I believe that God is preparing a new heaven and a new earth (Rev. 21:1, 22:17), that he wants to reconcile all people to himself (2 Cor. 5:18, Col. 1:20). Because of what I believe, I minister in Jesus' name.

I affirm those beliefs for the following reasons. Through the entirety of my life I have been taught Biblical truth by family, friends, teachers, and church leaders whom I respect and trust. Their faith supports my own. I also recognize my part in the historical line of God’s people stretching back 2000 years to the dawn of the church, and then beyond that, through the nation of Israel to Noah, Able, and the beginning of creation. On a more personal note, I affirm my belief through the interactions I have had with God. Though I have never heard the audible voice of God, and am unaware of any visionary dreams, I have felt the Holy Spirit’s prompting. I have experienced unmatched peace from submitting to God’s call upon my life after running for some time. Beyond that, I believe because of the life-change I have observed in myself as well as in students and others around me who have come to know Jesus Christ in a salvific manner. Because of these experiences, I minister in Christ’s name.

Finally, there is hope. My belief system with its supporting, somewhat more subjective, reasons gives me hope. I have hope for a future lived forever in God’s presence. I also have hope for now.  I have hope that knowing Jesus Christ can radically transform the someone’s life. I have hope that becoming a Christian can connect those who are isolated and alienated in community with others. This community brings life, health, and support. I have hope that becoming a Christian can give purpose to otherwise purposeless lives. Because of this hope, I minister in Jesus' name.

tl;dr version – I believe a set of truths about God, because of my personal experience and education, which gives me hope for the present and the future.  Therefore I minister to young adults who desperately need this hope.