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Friends United Meeting |
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April 2002
Commitments
By Retha McCutchen
"So, now, finish the work..." has been taken as the theme of FUM's 2002 Triennial in Nairobi, Kenya, July 10-15, 2002. That's a nice-sounding phrase for the Centennial Celebration of both the founding of Five Years Meeting (now FUM) and sending the first missionaries to Kenya.
Taken in context, the text carries with it a call to responsibility. The text is referring to good stewardship. Paul is calling on the church in Corinth to finish the work by supplying the material needs of the missionary activities of the newly emerging Christian church. Paul and other missionaries had preached the Gospel, trained and taught believers, and now it was time for those new believers to take responsibility for the work as Paul, the evangelist, was called by God to new places.
These believers were about three years old in the faith when Paul appointed elders and turned over the running of the church to local Christians. Does your church appoint leaders who are three-year-old believers? Or do we allow only older Christians to be leaders while the younger believers must "prove themselves?" Taking a lesson from the Apostle Paul, we must appoint those whose lives represent the Spirit of Christ and Fruit of the Spirit, not older people because they or their family have been church members for years or because they are birthright Friends or because they are educated or ones who held government jobs. External credentials are worthless in the Kingdom of God.
On his missionary journeys, Paul told the Gospel message of salvation in Christ, did some teaching, and often left other teachers while he traveled on. In II Corinthians 8, Paul affirmed the teaching and work of Titus in encouraging the church at Corinth to give financial support to further the Gospel. Paul states in verse 8: "I am not ordering you to do this. I am simply testing how real your love is by comparing it with the concern that others have shown." He knows they are a poor people by worldly standards. "It doesn't matter how much (or how little) you have. What matters is how much you are willing to give from what you have." (Verse 12)
This Scripture is a challenge to Friends worldwide to give of our resources—both material resources of money and goods and also of our time and talents. Only in this way will the Gospel move outside the current circles of Friends United Meeting to touch the lives of new people in places like Samburu, Gaza, Afghanistan or wherever God may lead.
As we prepare for the Triennial in Nairobi, our focus is on the call of God to Friends United Meeting in the new millennium. There is a ministry that only FUM can do. Although there are many excellent ministries among FUM Friends, we are not gathering to hear requests for money to support individual projects. We are gathering to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking corporately to Friends United Meeting... continue the work.
Copyright (c) 2002 Friends United Meeting
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