Support the USMB Giving Tuesday goal of $60,000
By Don Morris
#Together, in one day, you can help plant at least four new Mennonite Brethren churches. By supporting Mission USA and our Giving Tuesday campaign on Dec. 1, 2015, you can help us reach our goal of raising $60,000 for MB church planting in 2016.
Last year on this special day we raised over $50,000. Mission USA’s commitment to a new church plant is typically $15,000 per year for the first three years, so these funds gave us a head start in planting the five new churches that were born in 2015. Now we are praying to raise even more! Our goal for Giving Tuesday this years is $60,000—enough to plant at least four new churches in 2016.
Thanksgiving is a day for giving thanks. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are for getting deals. Now, the first Tuesday in December, we have Giving Tuesday, founded in 2012 as a day dedicated for people all over the world to give back to a special cause as an alternative to engaging in all the typical consumerism of the season. On Tuesday, Dec. 1, individuals, charities, families, businesses, community centers and students across America will come together for one common purpose: to celebrate generosity and to give.
For our first Giving Tuesday campaign last year, we witnessed dozens of Mennonite Brethren all over America having a lot of fun joining together to help raise needed funds for reaching people who don’t know Jesus yet through the birthing of new USMB churches. We had several churches that got fired up and promoted this vital fundraising event. Although this campaign is shaped mainly for individuals to give on this day, one USMB congregation gave over $10,000 collectively as their pastor strongly supported this effort and encouraged his church to give generously. We’ll take more churches doing that!
We hope to have hundreds of individuals and churches give online on this one day. We’ll have an easy-to-access place on our USMB website to do just that (www.usmb.org/givingtuesday). On Giving Tuesday, Dec. 1, we’ll also keep an updated rolling tabulation on our website of the donations coming in. It’s an exciting way to watch in real time what God is doing through our giving together.
I see our USMB staff getting excited again about this campaign just like they did last year, and they are working hard to get the word out to our USMB constituency. Giving Tuesday bulletin announcement ideas, special videos to show to your congregation, graphics to use and other ideas about how #Together we can do much more than we can alone will be coming to the inboxes of USMB churches, church secretaries and pastors. You’ll also see social media information and reminders on Facebook, Twitter and our USMB website. It’s a big deal!
We hope to have several donors who will prime the pump by providing matching donations. Last year, we had $15,000 in matching donations that got our campaign off to a great start. If you’d like to be a matching donor please contact me by email at don@usmb.org.
Just think about it: More people will be able to hear the gospel in their community as we plant more churches—church plants that are at least partially funded through our Giving Tuesday #Together campaign. Won’t you join in the fun?
This article is part of the CL Archives. Articles published between August 2017 and July 2008 were posted on a previous website and are archived here for your convenience. We have also posted occasional articles published prior to 2008 as part of the archive. To report a problem with the archived article, please contact the CL editor at editor@usmb.org.
