A Skit About Stewardship and Community

Some of the Blaze members volunteered to perform a skit on stewardship. Below is a small bit of the dialogue in case you missed it:

Narrator: [Setting 20 years in the future]. Let’s now see what happens when God’s people choose not to complain to God about the size of their storm, but choose to show the storm the size of their God.

Guy: The district superintendent, came by a few days ago and was asking me if I remembered what turned the church around. Apparently, there are several churches in our district that are about to close their doors. I told him turning our church around had not been easy, but we accomplished it because the church leadership had been successful in convincing our members of the importance of being directly involved in our community.

Nick: That’s the secret isn’t it.

Guy: No one cares who your god is or where you go to church, unless they first can see that you care about them and that your God’s love is manifested in your actions. I personally have found few people who were receptive to hearing my faith story unless I first had developed a relationship with them. I told the Superintendent that if his churches were successful at getting their people out into the community to help others, even if it was just in small ways, attendance on Sunday and support for the church would take care of themselves.

Nick: Your recollection is better than mine. I had just remembered the capital project and had forgotten why so many people in our community began to come to our church.

Guy: For years we waited for younger people to come through the doors and save the church but year after year it never happened. The young people were always described as being no longer interested in the message of the Gospel. But remember at the same time we started the capital project some of the older members of the church got us involved in Habitat for Humanity.

Nick: Of course I had forgotten that.

Guy: About 2 years into that project, we started renovation work on an elderly Puerto Rican lady's house. The following week her grandchildren came to church to thank us. Before they left we invited them to join us on our next Habitat project. After that project, her grandchildren were so excited they went and told all their friends about us, who then told all their friends.

Nick: Sunday worship began to look like the United Nations. We eventually had to go to a third service. I still hear people complaining they can’t get out of the neighborhood on Sunday mornings because of the traffic the church creates.

Guy: (chuckling). I was never more proud of our church. We gave a little back to our community and received 20-fold blessings in return. There’s a saying that ‘when a defining moment comes along you must either define it or it defines you.’ I’m glad our church recognized its defining moment and decided to reach out to our community and become an active part of so many people's lives. Everyone we help or share our faith with today is the harvest of their legacy.