Faith in action

On Sunday morning Curt Brockway unveiled our stewardship theme and campaign poster. The theme is "Unearthing Our Gifts: Growing our Ministries First Baptist Church." Curt explained that we all have been given gifts and talents by God and called to use them. As we use them in the church, our ministry will grow and be blessed by God.

The Poster features a "leafless" tree. For every $2,ooo given in pledges, leaves will sprout on the tree depicting the ministries that we are engaged in now, as well as the people who are a part of them.

A bit later Cynthia Strouse came up front and displayed one of the "no sew" blankets that we will be giving away as part of our missional church project in January. After telling us about the project, she asked for volunteers to help put them together. The blankets are made of four square yards of fleece and are tied off in knots all around the exterior. All eighteen blankets she brought with her were claimed. She promised some more would be available in the coming weeks. We hope to do at least fifty of them. Speak to Cynthia if you want to help.


In our Stewardship Moment I interviewed Amanda Duntz. She is the first of three people we will hear from during the three weeks of our Stewardship Campaign. Amanda grew up in Lebanon and has been coming to our church since the day she was born. After graduating from Lyman High School she volunteered for AmeriCorps and spent a year teaching English as a second language in an inner city school just outside Sn Jose, California. When she came back home, she got involved with the Windham Interfaith group which meets the needs of the poorer folks in the Willimantic area. She also went on our Mission trip last year and is now actively involved in our Missional church project. When I asked her why she did these things, she responded that it stems from her understanding of what it means to be a Christian. She explained that faith is meant to be lived out in the world. It isn't something to talk about. It is what you do. It is making a difference because of what you believe.

It was great to hear from three of our friends in church as they talked about what God wants to do with our gifts and talents.

Cal