I’ve had a couple of questions lately about special giving to benevolence or missionaries and want to post a few brief comments on those subjects.
First, regarding benevolence. We give fairly substantial amounts of money to help people in need, both inside and outside the church. The church budget provides the first $400 a month of this money, but much more is needed to meet even some of the needs around us. Much of what we spend comes in the form of designated giving, checks or envelopes that are marked ‘benevolence’. We use these gifts where most needed, but you can also suggest a use when you make the donation and we will almost always honor your suggestion. (For tax deductibility reasons, the final decision about disbursement must be the church’s).
Sometimes we don’t hear about needs in the body because people are reluctant to make their needs known. If you have a need or become aware of a need, please let us know about it. God has been very faithful over the years to provide for known needs.
Second, regarding missionary giving. We regularly support around ten missionaries or missionary organizations with monthly gifts from our missions budget, which was $30,000 last year. However, there is not a lot of slack in the budget for meeting special needs our missionaries might have, such as the recent needs of the Morrows after the lightning strike at the orphanage. We rely on the response of the body to do our part in meeting those needs. If you designate a specific missionary on a check or envelope, we will forward that money to the missionary with our next monthly gift. This kind of giving has been a tremendous blessing to our missionaries.
