Covenant Renewal Sunday

This text is going out by mail with our quarterly giving statements.  

To download or print the COVENANT RENEWAL PLEDGE, click here.

Brothers and Sisters,

Grace is the power of God, freely given, to transform us into God’s image. In our church, we seek after God’s grace by cultivating habits and practices that can change our lives. Our church lives by prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness, which is to say, we live by grace.

So. How will you seek grace in the next 12 months? This envelope contains your “Covenant Renewal Pledge.” I invite you to spend this next week praying over what next steps God is inviting you to take in embracing the grace of Christian discipleship. If you need more copies, you can find them on our church’s website.

As you consider what you will offer of your prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness, I want to share what we are offering to make these commitments as simple and grace-filled as possible.

Prayers: Last year, financial constraints forced us to stop offering Upper Room devotionals in all our worship spaces. The coming year’s budget includes a line for restoring the Upper Room. As soon as we have one month’s worth of expenses saved in our general fund, we will use that to offer these wonderful guides for daily devotion and prayer, free of charge.

Presence: We are asking for new small group leaders in the “Covenant Renewal Pledge,” so we can provide training and coaching this summer before launching new groups in the fall.  

Gifts: Many of us don’t carry cash or checks anymore so we’ve put our online giving in a new and memorable location.  You can make one-time donations, or set up recurring gifts, just by visiting fumcrestview.com/donation.  It’s a great excuse to use a smartphone in church!

Service: Just check out that “Covenant Renewal Pledge” I mentioned; look at all the places to serve! When you complete this pledge and bring it to worship on May 3, we will give your name directly to the people overseeing each ministry you want to serve. You’ll hear back within a week about how and when you can get started! 

Witness: Starting this summer, we will be including brief, personal and inspirational testimonies at least once a month in all our worship services. We are also dramatically increasing our budget for evangelism so that we can produce new resident mailers and videos and local advertisements to tell the story of grace.

Lately, we have shared a lot of letters, emails and web articles about “Where We’re Headed.” All of them are available on our church’s website: fumcrestview.com. Now’s the time to consider where you are headed. And by God’s power, everything we share with one another becomes grace – it’s the stuff God uses to transform us and change the world. 

Grace and peace,

 Michael