PUTTING FAITH INTO ACTION

"He handed out gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, and pastor-teacher to train Christians in skilled servant work, working within Christ's body, the church, until we're all moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God's Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ."  

-(Ephesians 4:11-12, The Message)

Dear Friends,

Whether we think about it or not, each of us has the opportunity to contribute every day to God's kingdom. In small ways and big ways, at home and at work, with our friends and with our family, we can act on our faith in accordance with God's gifts to us.

In fact, putting faith into action is a distinctive part of our Methodist tradition and is woven into the fabric of First Church/The Open Door. The Interfaith Winter Shelter, Habitat builds, youth mission trips, and the Wednesday Food Pantry are all examples of our church putting faith into action. But, we know such good works are only possible because of the individual commitment of each and every one of us.

Paul talks about this with the early church. In Ephesians 4:12, he says that God gave each of us different gifts "for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ." Paul understood that for the early church to grow, each of Christ's followers would need to grow strong in faith, and work together, to build up Christ's body on earth. That's still true today - we're called to be bodybuilders for Christ!

On Sunday, October 20th, we will kick off this year's annual stewardship campaign - Body Building - with a four-week sermon series about building up the Body of Christ: Keep At It (Oct. 20), All Together Now (Oct. 27), Adding Muscle (Nov. 3), and Forget the Competition (Nov. 10). Through this series we'll be exploring how to strengthen our personal faith and build up the ministries of our church.

On November 10th you will be asked to support building the Body of Christ by pledging your annual financial commitment to the church's work for calendar year 2014. Based on these pledges, we will develop our calendar year 2014 budget, and thus map out the scope of our work through First Church/The Open Door for the coming year.

Thank you in advance for your prayerful consideration of this important decision in your spiritual life, the life of the church and in the lives of all those we serve.

In Christ and for Christ,

Mark