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Approximately 8% of each dollar placed into the regular Sunday offerings of Winchester Friends Church goes to cover our Indiana Yearly Meeting "missions assessment" in support of the various missions activities of IYM and Friends United Meeting, including Associated Committee of Friends on Indian Affairs, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Whites Residential & Family Services, Christian Peacemaker Teams, and FUM missions in Belize, Cuba, Jamaica, Kenya, and Palestine. Winchester Friends Missions giving does not end at 8%! Additional Missions Offerings Many Friends also often give extra offerings marked "missions." The Missions & Social Concerns Committee forwards those directly to the intended recipient, if one is specified. If not, the Committee distributed such gifts quarterly to various organizations and missions such as Friends Disaster Service, the local Food Pantry, the local Gas Help Fund, and Christian Peacemaker Teams, and other outreach concerns that arise through the year. $7300 was given in this manner in 2004. The third Sunday of each month is designated "Food Pantry Sunday" and Friends are asked to bring an item for the local Food Pantry. This supplements regular gifts given at various times through the missions committee and the USFW.
FUM Missions Focus for July- December 2011
What Country Is
That?
During the second half of 2011, the Missions & Social Concerns Committee encourages Friends to learn about the unnamed English-speaking country in the attached map where Friends United Meeting has had a missions presence since the 1960s. Its capital city is Belmopan. What missions involvements do Friends have there? Who are the FUM field staff members there? What was the name of this country until 1973? Which has more people, this country or Indianapolis? See if you can find this information during July. September's Rummage Sale for Missions will raise funds for Friends' ministries in this country -- sale items are welcome! During the first half of each year, the Missions & Social Concerns Committee asks Friends to focus on ways to address a contemporary social concern (for January-June 2010 the committee focused on the issue of violence.....).
Spring 2011 Social Concerns Focus - Tolerance
The Missions & Social Concerns Committee has chosen "the need for tolerance during a time of incivility and societal polarization" as the issue upon which to ask Friends to focus during the first half of 2011. As followers of Jesus, we are called upon to make the effort to recognize "that of God" -- the image of God (Genesis 1:26,27) and the light of Christ (John 1:9) -- in every human being we encounter.
Religious
intolerance has nearly always been a problem for human
beings, and probably always will be. In the ten years since
the terror attacks of September 2001, it has been especially
close to the surface due to the popular characterization of
those events as a clash between Islam and Christianity. The
resulting apprehension and unsettledness has served also to
poison the fellowship and harden divisions among the many
expressions of Christianity. That makes these words of
Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa (from his recent
book God Is Not A Christian....) particularly important:
[We all should realize] that accidents of birth and geography determine to a very large extent to what faith we belong. If you were born in Pakistan, you likely are a Muslim, or a Hindu if you happened to be born in India, or a Shintoist if born in Japan, or a Christian if you were born in Italy. We should not succumb too easily to the temptation to exclusiveness and dogmatic claims to a monopoly of the truth by our particular faith. You could very easily have been an adherent of the faith you now denigrate, but for the fact that you were born here rather than there..... We must welcome and respect others for who they are.... We also must hold to our particular and peculiar beliefs tenaciously, not pretending that all religions are the same, for they are patently not the same. We must be ready to learn from one another, not claiming that we alone possess all truth and that somehow we have a "corner" on God.... When we read the classics of the various religions in matters of prayer, meditation, and mysticism, we find substantial convergence, and that is something to rejoice at. We have enough that conspires to separate us; let us celebrate that which... we share in common. ....Surely we can rejoice that the eternal Word, the Logos of God, enlightens everyone -- not just Christians, but everyone who comes into the world; and that what we call the Spirit of God is not a Christian preserve, for the Spirit of God existed long before there were Christians, inspiring and nurturing women and men in the ways of holiness, bringing to fruition what was best in all people.... If God is one as we believe, then he is the only God of all his people, whether they acknowledge him as such or not. God does not need us to protect him..... God remains God, whether he has worshippers or not. ....We must live out our [claims for Christ as Savior] in such a way that they help to commend our faith effectively. Our conduct far too often contradicts our profession. We proclaim the God of love, but we have been guilty as Christians of sowing hatred and suspicion; we commend the one whom we call the Prince of Peace, and yet as Christians we have fought more wars than we care to remember. We have claimed to be a fellowship of compassion, caring, and sharing, but as Christians we often sanctify sociopolitical systems that belie this, systems where the rich grow ever richer and the poor grow ever poorer, where we seem to sanctify a furious competitiveness, ruthless as can only be appropriate to the jungle. _________________________________________________
Tolerance
implies no lack of commitment to one's own beliefs.
Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others. --John F. Kennedy
The only way
to make sure people you agree with can speak,
is to support the rights of people you don't agree with. --Eleanor Holmes Norton
The test of
courage comes when we are in the minority.
The test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority. --Ralph W. Sockman
_________________________________________________
Whether
intentional or merely thoughtless, social intolerance involves
some kind of devaluation of other human beings. Even people who
consider themselves to be enlightened sometimes communicate
intolerance verbally through sarcasm or abusive laughing and
teasing, at other times nonverbally by gestures, body language,
and facial expressions. Such treatment often leaves others
feeling low self-worth and insignificance. Victims of verbal
and social intolerance experience diminished confidence and feel
undeserving, fearful, and unlovable. Some bear the emotional
scars of verbal abuse for a lifetime.
Picture a young
child, Johnny, with a loving, caring family. As he learns and
grows, he feels good about himself. Imagine Johnny's self-worth
and self-esteem as a full-sized piece of paper. When Johnny
begins attending school, he encounters many different types of
children, some not as kind as his family. Suppose a classmate
says to him, "I don't want you to sit here! Go someplace
else." Johnny's hurt feeling is like tearing off a piece of the
paper representing his self-esteem. He doesn't feel as
confident or valued as he did before. Each time someone says
things like, "That's a stupid answer"; "You're too fat"; "You
can't come to my birthday party"; "Whoa, what did you do to your
hair?", more pieces of Johnny's self-esteem are torn away. In a
chronically intolerant, abusive situation, it doesn't take long
for Johnny's self-worth to be reduced to confetti. We kid
ourselves if we think that reality changes significantly among
grownups. Intolerance expressed with adult sophistication and
subtlety is still intolerance, and it reveals an inward failure
to see others through the eyes of Christ.
Jesus' new
commandment to love one another as He loved us (John 13:34) is a
call to interpersonal tolerance. It means that we as Christians
must guard our words and invite the Spirit to be in control of
our thoughts. In Matthew 12:36, Jesus tells His disciples, "But
I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of
judgment for every careless word they have spoken." Paul
instructs, "Let no unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but
only what is helpful for building others up...." (Ephesians
4:29), and "let your conversation be always full of grace...."
(Colossians 4:6). In this day and age, that sounds pretty
difficult, but remember -- God never asks us to do anything He
will not help us to obey.
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be
pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.
(Psalm 19:14)
--submitted by Linda
Sipe, Missions & Social Concerns Committee member
Percentage of US Population vs. Percentage of National Wealth Controlled (both income and assets) (each upper case
character = 2%)
(source Jack A. Smith, Global Research, 2010)
Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words. The graph above illustrates with simple clarity a serious problem confronting Christians in the USA. One very significant dimension of the current state of societal polarization is economic. According to Global Research, the gap between the wealthy and the poor is greater now than at any time in the past 100 years. Just as there are sincere Christians in every economic sector of the population, there is a spiritual challenge to every follower of Jesus, regardless of their level of income or wealth. How we respond to God's image and Christ's light in all other people determines whether we are a part of the problem of polarization, or a part of its solution. Proverbs 14:31 He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.
Proverbs 17:5 He who mocks the poor shows
contempt for their Maker; whoever gloats over disaster will not go
unpunished.
James 2:1-9 ...as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don't show favoritism. Christians dealing with people of greater means than their own face two temptations -- either to curry favor in hopes of personal gain from them, or to resent them in unChristlike jealousy on the basis of what they possess. In contrast, truly recognizing that of God in them will produce in Jesus' followers a healthy sense of equality in Christ, and compassion for the burden of stewardship the wealthy bear (Luke 12:48).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ United Society of Friends Women The USFW raises around $700 per year with their spring-cleaning rummage sale, and about $2500 per year selling apple dumplings at the Mardi Gras festival in Winchester. With those funds, they support a number of FUM missions concerns, local needs, and special projects (school kits, health kits, baby layettes, etc.). The evening USFW meets the second Tuesday night of each month and the Afternoon group meets the second Wednesday afternoon of each month. Friends Youth The youth are preparing for the 8th Annual Compassion Garden between the Friends and Presbyterian parking lots. The tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers grown there are offered to churchgoers for a donation, with all proceeds used towards the $350 annual expense of a Compassion, Int'l child in Africa. The FY's Annual Lasagna Dinner raises money for Christmas Angel Tree gifts. The Junior church children have given their offerings the past few years to Heifer International to buy livestock for poor families in developing countries. Best Special Projects Starting in 2001, Winchester Friends has sought further to invest in God's Kingdom by giving between $10,000 - $15,000 of its financial reserves each year to outreach/ missions concerns, including FCNL, ESR, Friends Fellowship Community, community youth to Quaker Haven Camp, Hospice, the Matthew 25:40 Fund for local benevolence, InterVarsity, Muncie Mission, Circle You, Pregnancy Care Center, and several of the missions already mentioned above. In an effort to create some hands on involvement with the Best Trust, the Missions committee uses $1000 of Best Trust money to offer either $10 or $20 to willing participants (junior high age or older) who pledge to use it in Shareholders for Shalom projects or Pennies From Heaven. Pennies from Heaven encourages a participating Friend to accept $10 or $20 and agrees to ask the Lord to lead him/her to give the money sometime in the next few months to another person who is struggling in a situation of genuine human need (for food, medicine, or other essentials). The beneficiary preferably will be an individual, not an organization, and will not be a relative or best friend. The idea is to allow God to lead you to a "new connection" of some kind by giving the gift person-to-person. Care should be exercised, especially if the money is given to someone not well known, that the money is not used for harmful or unproductive purchases. The following coupon is to be given along with the money:
After the gift is given, the participating Friend agrees to report to the church in writing as to how God led them to the situation of need (taking care to keep the recipients anonymous, unless they give permission to be named), how the money was actually used, and any spiritual lessons they learned by taking part in the project. Verbal reports given during a meeting for worship will also be welcomed. THANK YOU FOR BEING A MISSIONS SUPPORTING CHURCH!! |
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Missions Emphasis on Hunger Jan-June 2008 Missions Emphasis on Domestic Violence January-June 2010
MCC Meat Canning Trip Jan. 22, 2008
Peace and Christian Social Concerns Queries
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