March 22nd, 2009
Dear church family or friend of Springs of Grace,
Grace and peace from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I cannot remember a time when the needs and opportunities before us as a church have ever been greater. The challenge of impacting the lives of those God has given us to love and to accomplish the mission God has given us to do requires us to stay on course. It is easy to get sidetracked or to grow weary but brothers and sisters in the Lord we must ask God for the grace to keep pressing on to care for people, to rescue people, to build relationships with those not like us because they are ones Christ wants to love through us.
The bible says that our citizenship is in heaven and because of that we are to stand firm. Giving your money away or working in order to give or spending your time investing in people that can give nothing back to you does not make any sense right now but it will! It looks stupid now but everyone else who has spent their lives on themselves will look stupid when Jesus comes back. In light of heaven – to live for ourselves instead of God and His kingdom and His people is crazy.
By God’s grace we at Springs of Grace have had our eyes opened to see something of the worth and beauty of the Lord Jesus. As a result, we long for His glory to be seen and savored by others. Our neighbors, those living in the inner city, many of those in man-centered churches, and people around the world treat God as though He were a small thing – as though other treasures and achievements in this life were a bigger deal than gaining Him. We long for them to know Jesus to be the greatest treasure.
Among the many ministries that God has raised up in this church body is a passion for investing in lives through our intern ministry and Project 61 summer ministries. For the past several years we have taken an offering in the spring to seek God’s provision for the special ministry opportunities of the summer. After prayer and seeking counsel from the advisory team we believe we should once again ask the Lord to provide for these ministries through this special offering.
During the next few weeks we want to ask you to pray especially for two things.
First, Sunday, April 5th we will take a special offering that will go towards our summer ministry. We don’t do this often. We hope people will give willingly and joyfully and secretly as each one is led by the Lord. Ours is a day when much of the church sells the gospel and others market the church in a way that targets financially profitable groups. We believe the Bible exhorts to give in secret and to trust the Lord to supply the needs of His body ought to be our emphasis. We are thankful for the generous way the Lord has supplied our needs as a church body through the faithful giving of the saints – without us needing to make any emotional appeals.
We believe deeply in the value of training urban missionaries and modeling for these interns what a God-centered church that goes after the head AND the heart for the glory of the Lord looks like. We believe the giftings of the interns adds greatly to our ability as a church to demonstrate the beauty of Christ to this city. Each year the Lord has provided amazingly for this ministry and we look to Him to do so again through His people.
The Lord continues to give us wonderful opportunities for increased ministry. The number of young men and women expressing an interest in serving as interns this summer is again staggering. We want to walk faithfully in the ministries the Lord has opened the door to. We are asking you to pray with us for $30,000 to support the summer ministry. Frankly, that is a staggering amount for such a small group of saints, but we believe the Lord has placed these ministries before us and it seems right to pursue Him to supply the means to carry them out. It may well be that the Lord would not have you give to this special offering. That’s fine. We just want you to pray with us and give if and as the Lord enables you to give.
Secondly, over the next 9 months we are asking each family of our church to join us in a prayer for laborers to join the ministry at Springs of Grace Bible Church. We are very grateful to the Lord for the people and gifts He is using to build His church here and we trust His wise leadership. However, if the Lord has these ministries for us and if they are to expand in effectiveness, then we need a larger base of laborers. Would you commit or renew your commitment to ask the Lord to enable you to reach at least one family or individual over the next 9 months who would come and join in the ministry here? One part of this would be making it a matter of regular prayer to ask the Lord to send more laborers to this ministry.
This has been an important part of this ministry for the past few years. Many of you are here as God’s gracious answers to these types of prayers in the past. Just think of the additional potential impact in ministry that more laborers might provide. If each family or individual would reach one other family and if each single member of this body would reach one other person by the start of 2010, this body would be in an even greater position to pursue our vision for training and sending out preachers and urban missionaries; promoting adoption; tutoring and skill development in the inner city; increased mission support; helping families raise up a godly generation; a coaching ministry; intern ministry; strengthening godly, holy and passionate marriages; an increase in the preaching and shepherding ministry within the body, effectiveness in carrying out the one anothers as we seek to see the gospel win in each other; and other opportunities the Lord may bring our way. If the Lord answers these prayers we might well add another 100 people for us to minister to and to labor with us. Last year several of us made that commitment before the Lord. The Lord answered that request for some of us. Others are still laboring in prayer and faith for the Lord to use them in bringing someone else to join in this ministry. Perhaps for others this request has slipped from our minds and needs rekindled. On Sunday, April 5th you’ll be given the opportunity to make or renew this commitment.
We could set our target at a type of ministry that would bring in more support and target more people – but that is not the pattern we see in the Lord Jesus – that is not the path to greatness in His kingdom that Jesus gives us in Luke 9:46-48. We certainly could aim at something smaller and more attainable in our own power but a small vision doesn’t seem to fit with the greatness we have seen in our God. So, we are asking you to join us in these two great prayers as we continue seeking to be a church that collectively puts on display the perfections of Christ.
To the praise of His glory,
Joe Blankenship & Andrew Moss