Every year, LCC attempts to buck the trend of Christmas commercialization and materialism by asking people to intentionally give wealth away. It’s a tradition we are embracing more and more each year.
Our first year, we collected money for Matrix Pregnancy Resource Center (now called Matrix LifeCare), the next year, we collected money for the Salvation Army, last year we encouraged people to give time and money to their own favorite charities and to tell us about it.
This year, in addition to our involvement with the Christmas for Everyone project, we are going to be raising money for three strategic ministry opportunities.
Hope Outreach & Wheels for Work
My friend Kim Dickens is the pastor of Hope Outreach, a small church in town that is nevertheless making a huge impact. Even though they have a small congregation, no building to call their own, and almost no financial resources whatsoever, they run shuttle bus service to multiple shifts at Indiana Packers in Delphi and SIA here in Lafayette. They are so committed to helping people find good work that they actually provide transportation!
As a part of their program, they charge a small fee to the people who get rides with them, but these fees only cover some of their ministry costs.
This year, I want to bless them with some significant financial assistance. That’s why we are naming Hope Outreach as a 2016 Christmas Generosity Project beneficiary.
Blessing the Ladies of Filly’s
If you have been around LCC for a while, you probably know that before we moved to our building, we sent some Christmas gift baskets to the ladies working in Filly’s. We wanted to be a blessing to them even before we moved into our new home. Well, this year, we want to do something similar but even better. We want to assemble a major package of financial assistance to bless those women because of something I will be announcing on Sunday.
Boosting the Building Fund
When I make my announcement on Sunday, it will be obvious that we are going to be needing some money for a major new project. I can’t talk about it yet in a public forum like this blog, but the third major part of our Christmas Generosity Project will be going toward that project.
Beating the Christmas Materialism
Each Christmas, our temptation is to pay attention to all things material. We are tempted to buy gifts for others while everyone is asking us to think about what we want for ourselves. The whole season drives us to think about stuff. Now, all of that is good for our country’s economy, but it’s not so good for our hearts.
That’s one of the main reasons we do the Christmas Generosity Project. We want to be people who intentionally say “No” to things that please us so that we can intentionally say “Yes” to blessing others.
Would you join me in raising our level of generosity this season?