Hello Living Word Church,
God bless you in the name of Jesus Christ! As always I hope this email finds you well. I hope you have had an opportunity to enjoy the beautiful weather God has blessed us with before it apparently snows again tomorrow (that's New England for you). This week I would like to focus our attention on our Global Ministries. These include all the ministries and missionaries supported by us as a Church who are dedicated to sharing the truth and love of Jesus Christ with our neighbors around our city, state, nation and world. These include ministries like Walking in Light, who as you read this are delivering food and goods to families in need throughout our city and Route One ministry, which is dedicated to helping women enslaved in sex-trafficking throughout our state. They need our support and our love!
So I am going to ask you to love and support them in two ways during this pandemic: 1) Pray for them. Pray that God would continue to provide all they need to do His work well, pray for wisdom as they adjust their ministries during the pandemic and pray that God will continue to grant them boldness in sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ. If you would like specific prayer requests from them or would like a copy of our Global Ministries prayer journal so that you can pray for them by name and their more about their ministries, please email me back and let me know! For the sake of protecting their safety, I didn't include those specifics in this email (some of our missionaries are serving in places where it is dangerous to share about Christ).
2) Support Them Financially: Our ministries continue to depend on God and His Church to provide all they need to continue their work faithfully. Please pray and consider what you can do to help them during this time. To give, please go to our website: https://www.livingwordworcester.com/ and click "Give" on the top right corner of your screen and you will be directed on how to do so and can designate your giving to "Missions". If technology isn't your strong suit, feel free to send in a check to our Church or reply to me and I can help. Below I have included 2 Corinthians 8:1-15 (NIV translation). Here, Paul is encouraging the church in Corinth to make good on their commitment to help their fellow Christians who were in need abroad. I invite us to read and reflect upon this passage and ask the Lord to help "also excel in this grace of giving"
Love your Neighbor and Brother in Christ,
Pastor Daniel
2 Corinthians 8: 1-15: " And now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord’s people. And they exceeded our expectations: They gave themselves first of all to the Lord, and then by the will of God also to us. So we urged Titus, just as he had earlier made a beginning, to bring also to completion this act of grace on your part. But since you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in the love we have kindled in you—see that you also excel in this grace of giving.
I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.
And here is my judgment about what is best for you in this matter. Last year you were the first not only to give but also to have the desire to do so. Now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means. For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have.
Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. The goal is equality, as it is written: “The one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little."
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