Embracing the Call

One of the Disciples’ mission imperatives is to become a pro-reconciling and anti-racist church. Our Special Offering in September will be used to implement programs for leadership development, design curriculum for intentional dialogue and learning, and forge partnerships within the Church and our communities. To offer your gift, please use a Reconciliation Offering envelope, the designated one from your personalized packet of offering envelopes, or a specially-marked one from the pew rack. Checks should be made payable to WACC, with “Reconciliation” written on the memo line. You may also give online by clicking here. Thank you for giving generously!

Special Offering 2018

Have you ever found yourself in the presence of someone who was greatly overwhelmed, and you felt powerless to ease their pain? Recently while participating in a meeting for a rally to highlight the plight of people living under the oppression of poverty, the moderator of the meeting was being criticized by the participants because he apparently made a decision without securing approval from the group. Because of this, the group felt left out and their emotions started getting reactive. Soon, I felt my own anxiety increasing. I took a deep breath and asked the group, “What do you need today?” Slowly, the tone of the meeting changed.

Words like trust, confidence, and fairness began to emerge. I wondered, “Is this not what God asks us every day, beckoning us to the ministry of reconciliation?” It seemed as if in the midst of our tensions and anxieties God was asking us, “What do you need today to embrace my call?”

In the verse preceding the well-known verse of Micah 6:8, The Message version reads, “How can I stand up before God and show proper respect to the high God?” The prophet ponders on response to God, “shall I give… the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” God has created and empowered each of us numerous gifts, passions, and experiences for how we respond to the prophet Micah’s question.

But, what if we changed the question? What if in the midst of our emotions, feelings, anxieties, and even as we ponder the sins of our souls, we stopped to ask God “What do you need from me today?” Last year’s special offering reminded us that everyone has a story, would you join us this year and let yours be one of doing justice, loving mercy and walking humbly before God?

Through your giving to Reconciliation Ministry, our churches are hosting “One Bag of Tea” conversations where everyone voice is valued; our Youth are leading and teaching faith-rooted activism; and our leaders are developing and participating in educational opportunities that promote justice that heals and love that binds us together with our God and neighbors. Will you Embrace the Call?

About the Special Offering

The Special Offering is used to fund our Church’s mission imperative to become an pro-reconciling and anti-racist church utilizing  experiential education, inclusive worship and intentional dialogue. Our efforts to promote healing, relationship and restoration in the whole family of God are enlivened by funds from this offering. Through it we are able to provide programs for leadership development, curriculum for dialogue and learning, and partnerships within the Church and our communities.

Recent events have reignited the conversation about human brokenness evidenced in the sin of racism and perpetuated in our institutional structures and systems. Your generous giving to Reconciliation Ministry is transforming lives and strengthening Christ’s witness in the world showing that we love one another, even as Christ continues to love us!

Donations on behalf of emergency grants on behalf of impacted communities and congregations toward healing for the communities of Ferguson, Staten Island, Charleston, S.C., and Baltimore can be directed to the Reconciliation Annual Fund/Racial Justice Response.

Why Have a Special Offering?

The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) has a history dating from the 1960s of sharing our resources to address the racism of our society and the racism within our own church. We have called this process the Reconciliation Ministry.

We receive this offering in the fall and use the funds throughout the year to give grants to the pro-reconciliation/anti-racism initiative to organize to dismantle systems and structures that perpetuate this sin of division within the Church.

The 2020 Vision adopted by our church names this work as one of the four priorities of our mission together as a whole church. This voluntary annual offering is the only source of funding for this ministry.

The form of this ministry may be changing, but the need for addressing racism has never been more obvious.

As the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) lives into its identity as a “movement for wholeness in a fragmented world” contributions to this offering facilitate camp and conference and leadership development opportunities as well as programs for dialogue across difference that promotes life-giving community within our beloved church and among the whole family of God.