Strengthen Your Strength

Strengthen Your Strength

 

In I Thessalonians 4, Paul urges the church to live holy lives.  In fact, verses 3-8 contains at least in my opinion, the best teaching in the New Testament about sexual purity.  Then I Thessalonians 4:9-10 say, Now about brotherly love we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other.  And in fact, you do love all the brothers throughout Macedonia.  Yet we urge you, brothers, to do so more and more.  (NIV)  What’s interesting about this is that after Paul commends these believers for their love for others he goes on to say, “Do so more and more.”  In other words, he’s telling them to strengthen their strength…to take something they’re already good at and become even better.  What a great concept. 

 

As we approach our special one-time God @ Work offering on the weekend of April 20/21, I am mindful of the fact that Mount Pleasant is a generous church.  Now I’m sure there are plenty of folks who need to grow in the area of stewardship and generosity and that our week-to-week giving could be stronger, but the bottom line is, our church is a generous church.  So, following the example of the apostle Paul, I want to encourage you to strengthen this strength by being willing to generously support this special offering. 

 

God is at work at Mount Pleasant Christian Church all you have to do is look and listen to know that’s true.  The additional parking spaces have been needed for a long time and have been a huge blessing as our attendance is currently up 12% over this same time last year.  We’ve also needed a maintenance building for some time as our campus now includes over 70 acres of property and nearly 200,000 sq. ft. of building space.  Our commitment to develop what we are calling a plan for “focused discipleship” has created the need for additional education space.  And the sheer numbers of people who are coming to us for basic necessities like food and clothing have created the need for our new Community Ministry Center.  And speaking of the Community Ministry Center, how exciting will it be to open this facility and expand our partnership with Midwest Food Bank by becoming a Super-Pantry for the south side of Indianapolis.  Because of this building even more people will come to us for food and clothes.  And in addition to that, we will be able to resource smaller food pantries in the surrounding area.  All of this will give us many more opportunities to share the good news of Jesus with people in need.

 

So let me encourage you, once again, to strengthen the strength of giving by being generous in this special one-time God @ Work offering.  Be willing to trust God and give over and above your regular giving on this one weekend to contribute to meeting the needs that God has created at MPCC.  Give generously, give sacrificially and give joyfully.  If you have a non-cash gift we can put you in touch with someone who will help you convert that to cash.  Pray for God’s leading and God’s provision in this offering.  Every dollar we receive is a dollar that we don’t have to borrow and that means more money for ministry.  So strengthen the strength of generosity!   

 

Jesus cares,

 

Pastor Chris