“You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:13
The third point of our vision is renewing heart, and I don’t think it will be difficult to figure out how this relates to the elements of renewal. Renewing heart is all about the mission of God. It’s about keeping the mission to make disciples the priority. We want to do this both here and abroad. We seek to revive this in multiple ways throughout the year, such as our missions convention or evangelistic services. But we’re also reformulating ministries in order to serve this purpose. It’s why, following Covid, we want to regularly send out more missions trips every year and why we continue to promote and support the team that annually works with ChildHope in Central and South America.
Bethany is a church committed to missions giving. We don’t want to see missions giving wane, but grow. Praise the Lord it has! Our Faith Promise goal at the first missions convention in 2019 was $500,000 and the church committed to give more than it had ever given to missions in a single year. Then, in early 2020, Covid hit, and I thought missions giving might fall off. It didn’t! It increased and not only did we commit to give more, we actually did. And in the years following Covid, even as attendance was slow to climb and there were many changes in the church, the body has been faithful and we have been giving nearly $500,000 to missions every year since!
I know God sees that and He has and will bless it. Think about this passage: “Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. The one who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and the one who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.” (Matthew 10:40–42)
This is talking about hospitality that supplies the need of those who are carrying out the Great Commission. That’s what we are doing with missionaries. We can rightly say, “He who supplies the need of the missionary will receive a missionary’s reward.” That doesn’t excuse us from more active forms of involvement, but surely it encourages us to continue to be a blessing because we will be blessed.
And so, Renewing Heart fits exactly into the elements of renewal because it is all about focus and intentionality in carrying out Christ’s mission. You are invited to participate in this renewal of heart and be a part of a church with a true mission focus.