by Jason Byassee
Jason Byassee
We’re so excited about this weekend! This Saturday night at 6:30 pm (note the time–chosen to be friendly to those who are cautious about driving at night) and Sunday at 11:00 am we will gather for a combined worship and to hear from Leighton Ford, one of the most significant leaders in the church for more than seven decades since he went to work for his brother-in-law Billy Graham at age 15, 71 years ago. I’m honored to call him a friend, and to introduce him to you, my friends of Boone United Methodist. This would be a perfect event to which to bring a friend.
Saturday night at 6:30 pm will include worship by local group Battle Victorious. They’re terrific in a concert venue, but this is church, and we’ll sing with them, and Leighton will preach. Sunday we will worship in the sanctuary at 11:00 am in a combined service with our wonderful praise team and Leighton preaching once more. He is only allowed to preach twice in twelve hours these days, so our combined service honors that need from our guest. We will eat together after in our Family Life Center. We will also have mission displays in our chapel Saturday evening and Sunday morning with local mission efforts showing us what they’re up to and encouraging our involvement. We will have our own mission projects on Saturday at 9:00 am. Please sign up for mission projects and for child care on Saturday night. I’m so proud of our mission committee, chaired by Dale Williams and guided by Rev. Laura Beach as well as Tamera Holshouser and Sarah Strickland of the Family Life Committee.
This weekend we will make a wager on God once more. Faith Promise is not a second ask, like for a building fund. It’s a step out in faith. We imagine that God will bless a certain sized gift separate from our normal Sunday offering. Then, if God is faithful and provides that money over the next July-June year, we give it to missions. If not, we don’t. We find that the more faith we have, the more God provides. The result of this over the past decade is a dramatic, sometimes 10-fold increase in our mission budget, allowing us to support local work like the Wesley Foundation, Circles of the High Country, Boone Area Missions, and international work like Guatemala, Zoe in Rwanda and India, and the Justices in Germany. We’re proud of our Faith Promise work and want to invite you to partner with us.
Sometimes the Sunday after Easter is called Low Sunday–the people aren’t there, the musicians aren’t there, hey even the ministers aren’t there. Not here. Easter is only the beginning. It’s that way with God and the church, and so it is in our midst here. See you Saturday evening at 6:30 pm and Sunday at 11:00 am.