Partner with SAMS this World Mission Sunday. Discover the different ways you can celebrate mission and raise awareness in your own community.
World Mission Sunday is a day for churches to come together to reflect on the importance of global mission and how they can get involved as a congregation. It is tradition in the Episcopal and Anglican Church to celebrate around Epiphany, which is February 27th this year. As an Anglican Global Mission Partner, SAMS-USA seeks to raise awareness of the importance of global missions and the support of missionaries. In Acts 1:8 Jesus calls us to participate in world-wide mission, “And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the Earth.” Here are five ways you and your church or diocese can participate in World Mission Sunday this year:
Hold a dedicated service: Celebrate and raise awareness as a church by using this Litany for World Mission. Here are some resources for you to use.
Educate: Invite a missionary to speak during or after church, and educate your congregation about what is happening overseas. Want to learn more about missions, Five Talentshas listed their favorite mission books here.
Be stewards of mission: Mission does not just have to be overseas. Encourage your congregation to participate in mission right where they live. Organize a mission day by serving a ministry that your church has a heart for.
Take up a special offering: On the day you celebrate World Mission Sunday, consider collecting a special gift for the missionaries or ministries you support.
Pray: Pray for how God is calling your congregation to participate in global mission. Pray for the missionaries in your church. Pray for those who are discerning the call as a missionary.
We encourage you to be a witness of mission this year. Observe World Mission Sunday right where you are by sharing testimony, prayer, stewardship, and education about missions in your church.
If you are interested in receiving printed material to promote missions in congregation, contact the SAMS-USA office today at 724-266-0669.
Prayerfully consider partnering with SAMS this year for World Mission Sunday by giving to the Great Commission Fund through this Virtual Care Package that will raise up, support, and send missionaries in the name of Jesus Christ:
$100 provides a retreat for a missionary
$50 equips 5 missionaries with a day of cross-cultural training
$25 provides a home staff member with a one-day staff retreat
We are continuing our discussion on the Articles of Religion (or “the Thirty-Nine Articles) in our discipleship group, and last week, we discussed Article 17, Predestination, which was predictably (no pun intended!) exciting.
After the discussion, as we are wont to do, we went down some bunny trails, and somehow ended up discussing a prayer that apparently some priests pray when someone is accepting Christ, that the person’s name is removed from the book of death and written in the book of life. I’ve never heard of this, and it launched a bit of a firestorm discussion.
I asked where this “book of death” is recorded in Scripture, and of course my student didn’t know where (because it’s not there). I pointed out that there’s only the book of life, and then we went to Revelation 20:11-15, and discussed the difference between ‘the books’ that hold the record of our lives and ‘the book of life,’ which records the names of those who are saved. More discussion ensued.
Then another student jumped in, and said, “Listen to that passage in Luganda; it brings it out clearly for me.” And she pulled out her phone (yes, there’s an app for that!), and read the passage in Luganda.
It is not often that I will repost something written about us, but this letter written by Nita Dempsey of SAMS-USA was so encouraging to us.
“Fifteen Pennies”
We had the privilege of hosting missionaries Johann and Louise Vanderbijl in our office in January.During their time with us they shared about their call to missionary service.Johann and Louise served in Gambella, Ethiopia where the climate can reach 140 F. degrees.Their ministry was church leadership development through a seminary that they helped to start.Louise was instrumental in organizing the library, cataloguing over 5000 books and Johann was one of the professors and the dean.Louise, a registered nurse, also assisted SAMS missionary, Dr. Wendy LeMarquand, in a Mother’s Union training initiative.
As a result of the Mother’s Union training, the 50 infant funerals they had in the prior year went down to zero this last year. The African women learning the prevention techniques taught are taking these lessons into their villages, where they are very well received.The seminary is teaching and ordaining deacons and priests in the ministry.Many churches have been planted in the refugee camps. God is powerfully on the move in Gambella.
While they shared about their missionary calling, I was surprised to hear of their struggles with raising missionary support.This was a hurdle for them beyond the call to strange lands and harsh climates.
The Vanderbijls’ struggle with raising support impacted me because it was a hurdle that could have stopped them from moving forward in their missionary call to Ethiopia.As I listened to Johann share how the Lord helped him to trust His leading in asking for support and for prayers, I was aware that all of us have a place where we have to surrender our fears in complete trust of the Lord. That is the crossroads where God meets us. It is a humbling encounter, but that is exactly the posture we need to be in, to allow God’s work in us to happen. Johann shared how the Lord worked through this humbling experience to glorify Himself as He provided partners for their ministry beyond anything they had hoped for.The blessing of God’s provision was a foundation stone of faith for their ministry in Ethiopia. After the Vanderbijl presentation, we were praising God that they were able to do the good work the Lord empowered them to do.
The Lord continues to use this experience to reveal His love and care.The Vanderbijls walked two blocks to our office to say goodbye before they left our area. On the way, they picked up 15 pennies they found on the ground. They have been praying for $15,000.00 of additional yearly support that is needed for their new ministry assignment in the Province of Southern Africa. As Johann shared the irony of finding an exact fraction of what they need, he laughed at the audacity of thinking this could be a sign of the Lord’s future provision. I think he is right and we rejoice with him in an audacious God!
Thank you for being a part of the Lord’s provision for SAMS and your missionaries!
Hello all our followers of our blog of 2011-2012! We are going on another mission trip–this time to Bangkok, Thailand. We’ll be leaving home on March 1 and will return on April 4. Therefore, this will be a much shorter trip than our trip to Lithuania. We have decided to do another blog for this trip provided we will have an available computer to use where we are going. I am letting you know early in case you wish to add your name to those receiving notification of our posts as they occur.
We will be assisting in the Cornerstone Student Center located next door to King Mungkuts Institute of Technology in the Lat Krabang district east of downtown Bangkok. We will be teaching conversational English and having fellowship with the students there. We know this will be an interesting experience and look forward to it.
That’s what the sign said in the window…but in reality the sale only applied to a few items. Apparently “storewide” means something different to them than it did to us.
But it did get me thinking about how the modern Church often uses misleading slogans to get people inside and how different that is to the way Jesus taught. He never sought to mislead people into thinking they were going to get a discounted ticket to the pie-in-the-sky-when-they-died. His teaching was often filled with stories of suffering and hardship and trials and crosses and dying. These stories were often hard to understand and when the numbers of followers began to fall, He asked those who made up the core if they wanted to leave as well. No deception…no tricks…no manipulation…just the harsh reality of life in a fallen, broken world that wants nothing to do with their Creator.
No discount for Jesus…His aim was to pay the full amount. Did He want a discount? For sure…in the Garden He prayed: “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from Me.” But He added: “Yet not as I will, but as You will.” And He drank that cup to the dregs…100%
Am I committed to His kingdom cause 100%? I know I look for discounts, not just in the clothing department, but in the life department as well. I don’t like to struggle, but, if I am honest, I have learned more about the Lord’s character and His love during times of hardship than during times of ease.
And what is my goal in life anyway? Isn’t it to know Him? Indeed, it is. To quote St Paul: “I want to know Christ – yes, to know the power of His resurrection and participation in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.”
There are no short-cuts to get to that goal and I know that I have not yet obtained all this. But this much I do know: there are no discounts worldwide. And so we press on…
