Christmas season proves
McAllen District’s giving spirit

Around the family table

I want to begin this New Year by simply expressing my appreciation for you, the pastors and laity of the McAllen District. I experienced delight during the Advent/Christmas season as I attended the many quality worship experiences in your congregations. I think that the panoply of creative, evangelical and beautiful worship services available in this district during December effectively illustrates our conference vision of “Offering Christ to All.”
Many of you actually discovered new prospects for church membership and some received new members in those special worship events.
In addition, most of our district churches increased their missional outreach to the people outside your congregations during Advent/Christmas. My heart was warmed by your concern for others through food baskets and home repair, as well as focused appeals for Advance Special projects with the district, conference and general church.
All of that was over and above your “normal” missional activities and your ongoing efforts to pay your conference ministry askings through the apportionments. Speaking of apportionments, our district paid out at 96.9 percent.
That figure is about the same as last year and not enough to brag about. Yet many needy individuals, dedicated agency personnel and mission projects call you “blessed” for your contributions.
All of this increased activity and intentional outreach in December is hard work—for pastors and laity alike. I thank you for your diligence of effort and your intensity of caring. Some of you who worked the hardest didn’t get to the 100 percent goal in paying your apportionments and/or didn’t add any new members to your congregation.
Please know that I know your hard work. More importantly for all of us, God knows the sincerity of our hearts and the longing of our spirits.
Many of you have told me that your holiday season was darkened by the death of longtime faithful members of your congregation. One of our small churches said goodbye to seven congregants who died in December. That emotional grieving makes the hard work of the season even heavier.
Yet, God is with us. And thank God there is no better season for us to remember how much God is with us than the Christmas season in which we celebrate that God came to live among us in Jesus.
Now we are in the Epiphany season during which we marvel at the many ways in which the still-living Christ makes himself known to us.
My prayer for you is that you will experience the resurrected, lively presence of Jesus in your hard work during this new year of 2007.
Go with God.