Let Us Give Thanks to God

I have so much for which to be thankful. Don’t you?
This past Thursday all across this country individuals celebrated Thanksgiving Day. This has been a tough year for many people. Just about everyone has been faced with examining their priorities. Many people may feel like they do not have much for which to be thankful. A lot of people have lost their jobs. Thousands of homes have been foreclosed. Retirement funds and savings accounts have dwindled.

In reality some of us are more fortunate than others. Our circumstances are more pleasant. Our resources are more sufficient.

Do we give thanks only when times are good? Or is there always reason for thanksgiving? While it is not necessary to give thanks for our circumstances, it is always appropriate to give thanks in our circumstances.

I am grateful for God’s blessings in my life and at the moment my life is good. I have a job. I still own a house (and a mortgage). There is food on my table and I have a warm dry place to sleep. My family is scattered across the globe but we love and support each other. My health is good. My retirement account is recovering. It is easy for me to give thanks.

Paul instructed us to “give thanks in everything for this is the will of God concerning you.” He was not suggesting that everything that comes our way is the will of God. Many situations are simply the results of bad decisions by us or others. Tragic circumstances occur because of the evil in the world. Everything is not the will of God. But I believe that it is the will of God that we demonstrate an attitude of gratitude at all times.

We have faced hard times this past year and more difficulties will probably come along in the future but a spirit of thanksgiving is still appropriate. The Old Testament prophet, Habakkuk, spoke to people who were in very difficult circumstances. In desperate time when his food source was scarce and his livelihood in doubt, he said “Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation” (Habakkuk 3:18).

Whatever our circumstances let us give thanks to God--today and every day.

--excerpt from Jamie Jenkins, North Georgia Annual Conference

Let’s continue to show our love for one another by giving to others that do not have. Let’s continue to help support the connectional giving of our denomination. To learn more about giving click here.

Miss Lladale Carey
Web Producer
UMCGiving.org

If you have stories you would like to share through our blog, please send us an email at connectionalgiving@umcom.org.

Just Up the Road

Just up the road from my home is a field, with two horses in it. From a distance, each looks like every other horse. But if one stops the car, or is walking by, one will notice something quite amazing.

Looking into the eyes of one horse will disclose that he is blind. His owner has chosen not to have him put down, but has made a good home for him. This is alone is amazing.

Listening, one will hear the sound of a bell. Looking around for the source of the sound, one will see that it comes from the smaller horse in the field. Attached to her bridle is a small bell. It lets her blind friend know where she is, so he can follow her.

As one stands and watches these two friends, one sees how she is always checking on him, and that he will listen for her bell and then slowly walk to where she is, trusting that she will not lead him astray.

Like the owners of these two horses, God does not throw us away just because we are not perfect or because we have problems or challenges.

He watches over us and even brings others into our lives to help us when we are in need.

Sometimes we are the blind horse being guided by God and thoses whom he places in our lives. At other times we are the guide horse, helping others see God.

Author unknown.

By giving 100% to your United Methodist Apportionments, you help others locally and around the world. To learn more click here.

God is Still in Control!

Miss Lladale Carey
Web Producer
UMCGiving.org

If you have stories you would like to share on the umcgiving.org blog, email us at: ConnectionalGiving@umco.org

Jonathan’s* heart sank when the college admissions clerk told him he needed a parent’s signature for his financial aid paperwork. He flashed back to the police hauling his mother to jail.

“She’s in jail,” he said quietly.

“What about your father?” the clerk asked.

After hesitating, Jonathan answered, “He’s in prison.”

This is one young man’s story, among many at Bethune-Cookman University, Daytona Beach, Fla., where some students face several threats to their future. The good news is that there is hope, thanks to the generous gifts to United Methodism’s Black College Fund. Recognizing the importance of historically Black colleges and universities, 20 annual conferences remitted at 100 percent to the fund in 2008.


“The Black College Fund is very important to our institution because it provides scholarship funds for many first-generation students who come from very troubled backgrounds,” said Bethune-Cookman University President Dr. Trudie Kibbe Reed.

Troubled backgrounds need not translate into troubled futures. Intervention makes all the difference in the world.

“Some of these kids are homeless. That’s how important [intervention] is. It’s the difference between them having opportunity or not, and without that money we couldn’t possibly make ends meet,” Reed added.

The university’s mission is to serve, in the Christian tradition, the diverse educational, social and cultural needs of its students and to develop in them the desire and capacity for continuous intellectual and professional growth, leadership and service to others.

When United Methodists give to the Black College Fund apportionment, they ensure that Bethune-Cookman University and other historically Black colleges and universities can live up to their mission. Thank you!

*A pseudonym

--Dawn Gibson

God is still in control!

Miss Lladale Carey

Web Producer

UMCGiving.org

Do you have questions or concerns that you would like to post to the UMCGiving.org BLOG? Send them to us at ConnectionalGiving@umcom.org. I look forward to hearing from you.

Conference Merit Scholar

Congratulations to Sara Croissant on being selected for the Conference Merit Award from the North Texas Annual Conference. Sara is in her first year at Hendrix College, Conway, Ark., where she is majoring in environmental science with a minor in religion. She has been involved in youth council, youth choir, and mission trips, has been a member of the Conference Council on Youth Ministry since 2003 and a junior counselor for Conference camps for five years. Sara and her family attend First United Methodist Church, Denton, Texas.

The Conference Merit Award is funded by a rebate of 10% of the United Methodist Student Day Offering which is traditionally held the last Sunday in November.

As higher education costs rise and the economic crisis continues, the demand for student financial assistance has increased sharply. The United Methodist Student Day Offering provides scholarships and loans for people across the U.S.--maybe someone you know.

For more information and to see how you can support United Methodist Student Day, click here.

Thank you North Texas Annual Conference for your giving.

GOD is still in control!

Lladale Carey
Web Producer
UMCGiving.org
SpecialSundays@UMCOM.ORG

A Matter Of The Heart

"Egypt, Judah, Edom, the Ammonites, Moab, and all

those with shaven temples who live in the desert.

For all these nations are uncircumcised,

and all of the house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart."

--A reflection based on Jeremiah 9:26

God cares about our hearts because God needs our hearts to reach the hearts of others with the Good News of Jesus. This is the essence of our faith. In the time of Jeremiah the hearts of the Jewish people had become cluttered with things that are not of God. To circumcise the heart was to cut away all those things which separated them from God.

Give from the heart and give to help young people receive scholarships through the United Methodist Student Day, World Communion Sunday and Native American Ministries Sunday offerings.

--adapted from Bishop Wills' Life Journal Entry for 8/10/09

Donate now!

To learn more about Special Sundays click here.

God is still in control

Miss Lladale Carey
Web Producer
UMCGiving.org

Matthew 6

Giving to the Needy

1. "Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
2. "So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.
3. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,
4. so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Treasures in Heaven

19. "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.
20. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.
21. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22. "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light.
23. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
24. "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.

Do Not Worry

25. "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?
26. Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?
27. Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life ?
28. "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.
29. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.
30. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
31. So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'
32. For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.
33. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
34. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

The scriptures have already told us how to live and how to give. Let's put into action our beliefs.

To donate to any of the 6 churchwide Special Sundays click here.

To learn more about the apportion funds click here. Please encourage your congregation/members to give 100% to all 7 apportion funds. There's still time.


Lladale Carey
Web Coordinator
UMCGiving.org
United Methodsit Communications

United Methodist Student Day

“Scholarships have been a blessing for me,” says Elyssa Sanner, a member of Wesley United Methodist Church, Evans, Ga. “I would have pursued a college education without the help of scholarships, but having the scholarships made the financial burden easier. I worried less about the technicalities of getting a college degree, saved my parents from worrying and financial burden, and saved more for my future.”


She received a United Methodist Scholarship as an undergraduate and earned a Bachelor of Arts in English. She graduated from Georgia College and State University, Milledgeville, in May 2009. “I served the church I attended in Milledgeville,” Sanner recalls, “through participating in the choir, praise team and Bible studies, and serving as a youth counselor.”


Now at the University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill, she is “a first-year graduate student working towards a Master’s of Science in Library Science. I’m just beginning this journey, but I’m excited by the opportunities the field provides,” Sanner notes. She looks forward to “making information organized and accessible and being involved with creative solutions to the problems that arise with the transition from physical to digital libraries.”


When she graduates, Sanner adds, she hopes to work “as a reference librarian in a university setting, where I can educate students on the resources available to them for research.”


When United Methodists support United Methodist Student Day, Sanner asserts, they “will see a return on their offering! The offering is so much more than less money in your pocket; it is an investment in someone’s future. You might not know exactly who benefits from your gift, but you will see the future leaders of the church benefiting from a college education they might not receive otherwise.”


Please give generously to this Special Sunday offering November 29. Thank you!

--Barbara Dunlap-Berg

To Donate click here.

Lladale Carey

Web Coordinator

UMCGiving.org

United Methodsit Communications