When you read this, you will do so likely from the ease of a comfy chair, with ready access to clean water, with a car in the driveway, electricity powering through your outlets, and AC pumping into the steamy Virginia August. It’s all grace that you were born into this context where these things are not luxuries for only the richest of the rich in the society, but for regular Janes and Joes like us. Water that is clean, electricity that doesn’t brown out several times a day and comfort that’s seemingly endless are the regular aspects of our life.
For a lot of the world, that’s far from the case. You have been blessed in immeasurable ways. That blessing shouldn’t terminate on you, but should be showered to the people local and global that may not have been so evidently blessed.
In July, I referenced several organizations that unite people from the first world with children from the third. I shared how Emily and I have for several years now made a commitment to sponsor a child providing for their education, supplemental nutrition and support for their family. The organization that we use is Children International, but other organizations like Compassion and World Vision provide similar resources for kids across the globe. While it does require a nugget of income each month, we believe in the mission of serving people that we don’t know or interact with on a daily basis. The draw to serve only those that can thank us readily is strong – I call it the gravity of gratitude. When you give to a mission you can’t immediately see the benefits of, you’re acting on faith that what you’re doing is making a difference.
At the same time, local missions are in certain need of our prayers, funds and our volunteer hours. Last year I asked that every member of RMUMC give an hour a year to mission work. I hope that many of you have continued that into 2018. Few joys are available to the believer that are greater than giving of your time and gifts to people in the town and county that you live. In September, we’re planning a Missions Sunday where local missions will set up booths in the Atrium and you’ll be invited to ask them about getting involved and serving Franklin County residents with them.
All this work – international, national, and local – is prescribed by God through Jesus Christ. Christ reminds us that when we do for the least of these we also do for him. As he spoke to us, that he came not to be served but to serve, so too do we follow his model in doing just that. We are to serve people. Whether they be 13-year-old girls in Ecuador, on missions in North Carolina, or at Doe Run Road, the responsibility of every believer is to give of their time, finances, prayers, and hopes for the least of these.
May you find your place to serve!
In Christ,
Pastor Will