Jym Shorts

Jym's Shorts - September 3, 2020

by Jym Gregory on September 03, 2020

You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?  It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.  You are a light of the world.  A city on a hill cannot be hidden.  –Matthew 5:13-14

 Our annual Missions Emphasis is a few short weeks away.  On September 20th and 27th we will step away from our Genesis study to focus on missions, with this year’s theme being: Salt & Light. 

 On Sunday evening, September 27th, we will invite one of our local missionaries (Rick Alvis – CEO at Wheeler Mission) and four of our international missionaries (Justin & Debby Williams – Uganda and Sasha and Olga Skrypak – Ukraine) to join us in a Question and Answer session.  We’ll inquire into the current state of missions as it relates to all that is taking place in our world today, and get ministry updates from each missionary. That evening we will plan to spend about 2 hours together (6 p.m. – 8 p.m.) Due to all our restrictions related to COVID-19, we will be keeping things very simple this year for our Missions Emphasis.  Therefore, I regret to say that we will not offer childcare for this event, nor will we offer refreshments.  As always, your children are welcome to join in this event, and I believe those who are a bit older will benefit from it as well. 

 I recognize that this has potential to take some of the “zip” out of our Missions Emphasis.  That is a bit discouraging to me, because our missions giving is so vital to our vision and overall mission at LifePoint.  We have always been such a generous church as it relates to missions, not just financially, but in the giving of our time and prayers as well.  Our annual Missions Emphasis is not geared toward providing you all with such a “wow” factor that you are convinced to give more to the Faith Promise.  Nevertheless, with the combination of COVID-19 and its impact on so many financially, and our inability this year to really get missions in front of the congregation like we have in the past, I admit my concern for our mission outreach is elevated.  So far in 2020, for the first time in over a decade, our missions giving is not keeping up or outpacing our Faith Promise.  We have been able to continue to be very generous in missions due to the fact that we carried a substantial overage from 2019 into 2020, but thus far we are running about $45,000 behind our Faith Promise for 2020.  I do not write this to chastise- you all have been very generous in both general giving and missions giving this year in light of the wackiness of 2020.

 Obviously, our Sunday evening service on September 20th will look different than it has for the past two months.  We will not utilize it as a 3rd Sunday service, but will instead dedicate it to our Missions Emphasis.  Those of you who have been attending the Sunday Evening service will not get the preaching time that you generally receive, but we will utilize some time that evening for corporate singing prior to our speakers.

 I hope that many of you will join us on that night for an opportunity to be challenged and encouraged by a few of our missionaries.  I do believe it will be time well spent.  In the meantime, please be praying about how you might be involved in getting the saving gospel of Jesus Christ into a dark and desperate world in 2021.

 Grace and peace,

 Pastor Jym

Previous Page