
"...a man ran up and knelt before [Jesus], and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" (Mark 10:17)
If Jesus' gospel was about prosperity, the answer to this question is quite simple, just give more money to the church and your blessing will be returned ten fold. This certainly would make getting into heaven much easier or at least more straight forward! Of course, this response is FULL of heresies and just bad theology.
Jesus' actual response is, "...go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor...then come, follow me." (Mark 10:21)
This response could be misconstrued into the first heretical response but there are many clear differences.
Jesus doesn't direct the money towards an institution, he directs it to the poor.
Jesus doesn't say anything about getting anything in return other than a "treasure in heaven."
Part of (if not all of) Jesus' directive is to follow him and his way of life.
As I said in my message this weekend, Christianity is much less about the things we don't do than it is the things we do. The rich man followed the law well, he didn't steal, cheat, lie, defraud, commit adulatory, or anything like that. He was a respectable and moral person. But what did he do? Jesus invites him to be generous, to give to others. Christianity is about giving!
Christ the Servant is a church that DOES! We feed people, we cloth people, we support housing for people, we listen to people, we share space with people, we are generous people who give A LOT both financially and of our time and talents. We don't get booged down in what we should or shouldn't do and instead we seek out the humanity in others and we act with generosity!
Church, your leadership challenged you to think BIG for 2025. We proposed a BIG jump in our budget with BIG goals in mind and each of you were invited to consider to participate in BIG ways! I am excited to celebrate with you where we are only a few days after we began collecting your commitments and intents for 2025:
25 households have made commitments to date
$142,742 have been committed to date
We are 55% of the way to our financial & participation goal already
The average increase households have made is an incredible 25% increase
3 of the households made commitments for the first time at CTS this year
As a reference point, for 2024 we had 37 households make commitments totaling $180,890. Church, this is an incredible start and demonstrates the deep faith and boldness you have to the gospel and the work that God is doing at Christ the Servant! THANK YOU! Thank you to everyone who has made a commitment. Thank you to all of you who are still praying over what God might be calling you to do. There is still time to get those commitments in whether you mail in your commitment card or complete the ONLINE COMMITMENT CARD. Our goal is to have 45 household commitments this year and a total of $261,000 in commitments.
If you aren't familiar with our hopes for 2025 or why we are seeking commitments of generosity for this coming year, please check out the Faithful Foundations Annual Appeal page. Again, thank you for your generosity and supporting the mission and ministry of Christ the Servant. We say it a lot around here because it is true, God is up to something BIG and it is a blessing to have you be a part of it!