A Special Invitation from the Pastor
Don’t Miss This Wednesday Night! --special invitation from Pastor Gary Furr
On Wednesday evening, February 1, at 6:00 p.m. in the Fellowship Hall, the Permanent Endowment Fund will be rolled out in a program that you won’t believe! I know many of you have gone to plenty of dinners for Annual Funds, Endowment programs and so on. Maybe you know about them. We adopted this as a church focus, but permit me to take a moment to introduce it to those who don’t know much about it. An endowment fund is a long-term investment fund to continue ministries and missions and our church now and beyond our lifetimes.
The 60th Anniversary will be a fantastic time of celebration and remembering, but also a time of hoping! We have so many glorious events and surprises ahead, but this one lines up perfectly for this time. Anniversaries are not times to simply dwell in the past. They are invitations to celebrate what is lasting and permanent in our lives.
A couple celebrating a 60th wedding anniversary is likely to look back with wonder at how quickly the years went by, but also with gratitude for blessings, for lessons learned, for the wisdom of their struggles and hardships, and for the people in their lives. The same is true for a church family. Sometimes we have people who just pass through our church for a while, but it becomes a place of renewal, respite, recommitment, and stability. The simple gifts of worship, love, and relationship forever change them.
The endowment is more like an inheritance left by that couple, hoping that their children will know the love, blessing and strength of those things they found in their journey—values to hold onto, avenues into which to pour their lives, and causes worth supporting.
This is not a dinner for “rich folk” with a lot of stock to give. It’s for everyone. This church belongs to God. Its work belongs to all the members, as do its fruits. And its future depends on all of us, especially those who are now in our nursery but will one day carry the torch. There are ways we can all build something that will carry on the best of who we are.
I hope you’ll join me tomorrow night for the presentation—everyone will be there! And our entertainment will have you laughing and rejoicing. I’m going to be there. Hope you will! Make a reservation for dinner using the form on the church home page (or call Martha at 979-5920) and come on! It’s cheaper than dinner and a movie and the outcome will last a long, long time.
Gary