Bishop Ward gives a report on the conference Mission Endowment Fund, which has made a grant of $60,000 to the Conference Disaster Response Ministries to be used for Hurricane Matthew recovery.
Abundant grace and peace to you today in the name of Jesus Christ.
We give thanks for God’s abundant, overwhelming, never-ending generosity to us. Grace upon grace is described in John 1:16. Because of God’s abundant grace to us, we are called to be generous to others. Our theme for this quadrennium is God’s Great Generosity. We want to grow in generosity and celebrate God’s goodness to us by reaching out generously to the world.
Today, the Council on Finance and Administration is meeting and I invite your prayers for them and for Christine Dodson, our Conference Treasurer. Likewise, I invite your prayers and support for the treasurer and financial secretary and finance committee in your church. Today is a good day to call them and thank them for all that they do.
We have created in the North Carolina Conference, in addition to strong and faithful support of apportionments, a Mission Endowment. The Mission Endowment now has a corpus of $1.2 million. As a result, we were able to make the first mission investment of $60,000 to Disaster Response. Thousands of people are in need of help in the recovery of their homes. As a result of the Mission Endowment, $60,000 has been made available for this great need. The Mission Endowment will continue and as it grows in size, even greater amounts can be given as we invest in mission, unforseen needs as they arise in the years to come.
Thank you for your generosity and for your gifts. They are deeply appreciated; they are celebrated in heaven, and they are well-used.