March 12th, 2012

Dear church family or friend of Springs of Grace,

Grace and peace from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. This past year the Lord has challenged us as a faith family with several truths. Through the young lady, Jehoshabeath who leveraged her influence as the sister of the king to rescue the helpless and to further God’s kingdom, we have been asked to leverage our influence as a child of God to seek our Heavenly Father for the rescue of the helpless and the spread of His kingdom in these days.
God has a mission for us to accomplish and a people He has given us to love. In 1 Corinthians God has called us through Paul to run like the winner runs – to seek how we can be all things to all men so that by all means we might win some. I hope you are joining me in asking how we can break down barriers and close gaps and minimize differences so that we can gain a hearing for the gospel with our neighbors, classmates, colleagues, families and friends. I believe the Lord is calling us to lift our love for each other to a higher level so we can have the comfort of a strong family standing with us and behind us as we extend ourselves in love to all those God gives us to love.
God has urged us towards His mission for us and towards these acts of love in many ways. One of those is a passion for investing in lives through our intern ministry. 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 1st, 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 seems to sell the gospel and others market the church in a way that targets financially profitable groups. We feel the biblical exhortations 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 add greatly to our ability as a church to carry out the mission God has given us for 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 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. Last week I was reminded of a way the Lord challenged me back in the summer of 2010 when our church was going through a very challenging financial time. Let me quote you what I wrote that night. “An 8 year old boy came to VBS this morning and ran up to me and said, “I have an offering.” We never take a formal offering in our church much less in Vacation Bible School. I answered – “That’s great. Why?” The young boy answered – “I thought this morning, (with a huge smile) I love this church – I ought to bring an offering.” I took him to the little box on the wall and he stuck in his fifty cents. I was convinced that it was a sweet smelling aroma to the Lord!” I love this church and the work the Lord has called us to and I am asking the Lord to let my family give towards it. Ask the Lord what you should give and who you should share this need with. It may well be that the Lord would not have you give to this special offering or share the need with others at all. He may have you express your love for Him and this church in other ways. 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.
Many of you are here as a direct answer to this type of prayer by others over the past years. Hopefully, the Lord would see fit to reach more than one family through some of us but if each family or individual would reach one other family or individual by the start of 2013, this body would be in an even greater position to pursue our vision for training and sending out preachers and urban missionaries; addressing the educational crisis by taking our after school program to five days a week, promoting adoption and foster care and supporting the families who have adopted or are caring for foster children; tutoring and skill development in the inner city; increased mission support; helping families raise up a godly generation; a medical mission to the families of our neighborhood, ministry to the homeless, a coaching ministry; intern ministry; strengthening godly, holy and passionate marriages; increasing and developing our preacher school into a tremendous training center; finding and providing real outlets for teaching and preaching the Bible throughout our city; outreach to the pimps and prostitutes and gangs of our city; ministry to the disabled; an increase in the preaching and shepherding ministry within the body; effectiveness in carrying out the one anothers as we seek to stir each other up to love and good deeds; 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 labor alongside.
It is my desire for you to prayerfully make a commitment before the Lord to pray for laborers. This is no small thing. Perhaps you have made this commitment in the past and it has slipped from your mind. This would be a great time to renew this commitment. On Sunday, April 1st you’ll be given the opportunity to make or renew this commitment.
In Ephesians chapter 3, Paul is speaking of the church and in that context he says, “Now unto Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.” Our Lord is able to do far more than we think through the church for His glory. Please join us in these two great prayers as we continue seeking to be a church that collectively puts on display the perfections of Christ.

Your servant,

Joe Blankenship