Youngsters help bishop deliver message

By Claudia M. Williams
Staff Writer
A major reason for building new churches is to provide for our children and grandchildren, Bishop Joel N. Martinez said last week in Corpus Christi.
Therefore, he called upon 55 youngsters June 2 to help him deliver that message during his State of the Church address to the Southwest Texas Annual Conference.
“We are not about budgets and buildings, real estate and mortgages,” the bishop said. “We are about people. People, especially little people, are to be our priority in Christ.
“We were once children, and the adults in our families and churches gifted us with their faith. We must do the same.”
He handed each child a handful of letters. The youngsters then fanned out across Selena Auditorium, site of the meeting, to pass out the messages to adults.
The letters from Martinez asked the church leaders to consider prayerfully how their congregations would offer Christ to all.
“Your being here is a reminder that God wants us to extend his love and grace to his children,” Martinez told the youngsters. “All our work this week is about doing God’s work for you.”
Martinez urged Southwest Texas leaders to pray about their responses to the five questions in the letter and share the questions and responses with their local congregations. The five questions are:
> Are you willing to be a daily prayer partner for the bishop’s initiative on new churches?
> Are you willing to work with leaders in your local church (or ministry) to reach the spiritually hungry in your community?
> Are you willing to work with your local church or district to sponsor a new church start in your area of the Southwest Texas Conference?
> Are you willing to challenge your local church (or ministry) to support the organizing of a new church in another nation as part of your response to Christ’s missionary mandate in Acts 1:6-8?
> Are you willing to give a testimony about what Christ has done with your church/district at next year’s annual conference session?
Calling the 55 children who joined him on stage after distributing the papers his “special guests,” Martinez explained they were important in helping everyone understand the importance of building new churches.
Martinez said we “can never fully repay the generations that raised us and formed us in faith.”
“But,” he said, “we can live, serve and give so that a strong community of faith is available for these little ones That is how we give thanks to God for those who brought us our faith.”