So don’t think the impact is measured ONLY by the number of church mem- bers you have, or by how much money your church spends on missions, or how many of this or that your church or organization has or does or spends – the impact is how what you are doing affects others, and are you being obedient to God in what you do and where you do it.
in Jerusalem – in our hometown and community. This is the primary function of the local church. In Judea – throughout our state and even our nation this is what ONA does by planting churches all across our country. Next Jesus said to LAST place any self-respecting Jew would go? Well, I think that is exactly the point, wherever your Samaria is, the place that is at the bottom of your list for a other words, there is no place we can go that we are excused from our duty to those years, the minister there was Rev. Thomas Ervin, and as I recall about one - turn to heaven: Teach, baptize, disciple, feed, clothe, welcome strangers, visit those in prison and hospitals “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have
- ing in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and James 2:14-17). - ders and disposes of the circumstances of his people in this world, that while some are in a condition to give relief, others are in need of it. Works of charity more stress laid upon them in the judgment on that great day than is commonly imagined. These must be the proofs of our love, and of our professed subjection
My challenge to you is this: commit your church to a two-year effort to be a partner (or advocate) for one of the ministries that are part of the ARP denomi- - may choose to do this is entirely up to you. You might want to take a look at the get some ideas, but my intent here is to challenge you and your church to get to a higher level in your service to the Kingdom and to offer several choices as to how you might accomplish that goal. As an example, a particular church might may send volunteers to put on a VBS session at an ONA church plant, or anoth- er may choose to send volunteers here to Bonclarken for the annual work-week, If this idea of being an advocate for one of our ARP agencies is a little
July/August 2024
intimidating, there are other ways get involved in serving – to sort of ease into the waters: you could commit to ringing the Salvation Army bell at - ing at the local soup kitchen, or the crisis pregnancy center. All these are group of teenagers to Rwanda in Af- rica for a week this summer to work - gram. I am particularly impressed with a few of these young people be- cause they do not seem to be intimi- dated in the least at the prospect of spend a week in an environment that they will not be able to comprehend for weeks after they return. But they are willing– even eager– to go. The idea here is to go beyond
of you know, until we get uncomfort- able with our daily routine nothing is going to change. I do not intend to insult anyone here, but for many minimum: we give a few dollars to Easter and Thanksgiving, and maybe attend a session at our churches Mis- sions Festival, but doing much more than that is really pushing it. Getting to moving from passive spectators to active participants in the work of the across the street to share the Good News with a neighbor; for others, it country whose name you can’t even pronounce to share the Good News. Let this Synod meeting be the launch- ing point for you and your church in and doing something meaningful for you will have a good answer when someone asks you, “What part of GO
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