Gifting Yourself During the Holidays

Recently I was speaking with someone at the JBWS Candlelight Vigil reception in our church. They looked around our Narthex and said, “Are you the church that gives out those holding crosses? My sister gave me one and I love it! I pray with it everyday!” Our new church identity is: The Church That Gives Holding Crosses. What a blessing!

Milt and Florence Andersen have gifted of themselves by making hundreds of holding crosses that our church gives out to those in the hospital or to anyone in need of a reminder that Jesus Christ is present with them in the midst of suffering. Two years ago Florence suggested to Milt that he might make a “few crosses” when he could no longer golf. She thought it would be good to keep him busy. This inspiration has turned into a widely known Holding Cross Ministry from our church to the Morristown area community! When I hand a holding cross to a person in the hospital, they immediately grab onto it and sigh with relief seeming to feel that peace which surpasses all understanding from Christ.

Over 277 years our church has had a very important identity as God’s gift to our Morristown area community. We are known for our great history of leadership and hospitality, for the famous visit for communion by George Washington, for transforming our previous church building into a hospital during the revolution, and we are known for the wonderful reconciliation our church experienced when we reunited the two churches after the Civil War. Currently we are known for having: two beautiful buildings, a fabulous nursery school, a caring mission-oriented congregation, articulate preachers and on and on. Having an identity of “giving” is exactly what Christ had in mind for his Church since the very beginning.

As I write this we are in the midst of stewardship season heading into Advent. “Giving” is a theme for both the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons. Meditate on all that God has given and respond with thanksgiving to God by blessing others. This is the time set aside to consider our “gifts and talents” and to give of ourselves sacrificially for the sake of Jesus Christ who sacrificed for each of us.

Please "gift yourself" this season by giving a portion of your time and talent, (like Milton and Florence Andersen do so generously), AND give of your financial resources also, to sustain our many church ministries into 2011. We want to do all we can to help this church continue to be God’s gift to the Morristown region for another 277 years and more!