Designated Giving  | |
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Planting Christ’s Peace—One Handprint at a Time
From now through August 2007, congregations, families, and
individuals have the remarkable opportunity for their contributions to help
create a place where there is room for everyone to come and experience the peace
of Jesus Christ. How? By contributing to Chattanooga Kids: Planting Christ’s
Peace. I could tell you that the initiative, which has a goal of $600,000, will
renovate Chattanooga’s current center; add space for a safe, welcoming place of
worship, recreation, and education; and will provide facilities for the Church
Planting Center, where planters will be trained to open new congregations in
diverse settings throughout North America. All of this is accurate. However, a
picture is worth a thousand words, so I will let the visual of the children’s
handprints explain why your contributions to this initiative are so vital to the
Community of Christ.
Before you proceed with this article, look at the handprints on
the cover of last month’s Herald, or visit
www.CofChrist.org/designatedgiving and view the PowerPoint slide
presentation. Every handprint you see has a unique story. It began about a year
after moving into the Urban Ministries Center, when a kids’ church night was
held by Jared Munson and two of his friends. One activity included having the
kids sign each other’s T-shirts. A small boy became sad because he could not
write his name as large as the other kids. He quit participating and sat in a
corner and cried. Jared and a friend went to talk to him. The boy said he hated
having little hands because no one noticed what he wrote. They began talking
about how everyone gets noticed in God’s house, no matter how tall or short, old
or young, or what size people’s hands are. During the conversation, Jared got
paint out of the storage room and said to the boy, “Come with me and I’ll make
sure everybody who drives by the Center notices your hands.” They trooped
outside and put the first set of handprints on the exterior wall of the
building.
Before the evening ended, everyone in attendance put their
handprints on the wall and signed their names. The handprints symbolize that
everyone who comes to the Center gets noticed and is important in God’s house.
Since that first night, dozens of handprints from all ages have been added.
 Helping
Hands for Jesus
One Sunday not long ago, a 10-year-old came to church in Chattanooga crying. His
grandfather had hung himself, and the boy was the one who found him. The child
knew that he could come to the Center to be in a loving, safe environment.
Helping children and youth deal with the tragedies of their lives—parents in
jail, poverty, violence, fear, and death—is a daily occurrence for Chattanooga
ministers.
During the 2005 Roofs Over Africa designated-giving initiative,
the Chattanooga kids wanted to contribute toward a roof. Bob Kyser received the
following note, along with $271.06 that included $80.02 from the kids and
matching gifts from outside the area, a token from Chuck E. Cheese restaurant,
and the end of a zipper:
Here is the money for helping to put roofs on churches for kids
in Africa. I wish we had more money. Being poor really sucks in a giant way. I
wish nobody in the whole world had to be poor. We give this money to you to help
get a roof on the church in Africa. Some of us Chattanooga kids went without
lunch money and we told our aunties to give you the money for our movies and
pizza this month.
Even though the teenager’s own roof had leaked forever, as well
as the one at church, to her and to others it did not matter. They did not wait
but responded generously to a need greater than their own. For, you see, the
Chattanooga kids understand that, “In God’s house, there are many rooms…a place
for everyone!” (John 14:2, adapted).
In addition to individual contributions of any amount, 300
congregations, families, or individuals contributing $1,000 or more will meet or
exceed the $300,000 portion of the goal that remains; or 600 congregations,
families, or individuals contributing $500 or more will meet or exceed the
$300,000 portion of the goal that remains.
—Sandra Ferguson reporting
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