Why Have A Reconciliation Ministry Offering? Facts And Information About The RM Offering

A Letter From April Johnson

Minister of Reconciliation

Dear God's Beloved in Christ,

This Sunday, September 28th and on the following Sunday, October 5th, we Disciples celebrate the 2008 Special Offering for Reconciliation Ministry. On these two Sundays we offer our monetary gifts to further the mission of our Church and to live into our self understanding to be a Pro-Reconciling and Anti-racist Church. I am reminded as we approach this significant annual offering of our statement of identity:

"We are Disciples of Christ, a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world. As part of the one body of Christ, we welcome all to the Lord's Table as God has welcomed us." This is who we say we are. This statement describes both our current self understanding and our future hope. We are what we are becoming. As Christians, we live as if what is to come already is. We are people of the table and it is at the Lord's Table each week that we become one, united as one body of believers – the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Through the model and witness of Jesus Christ and his disciples, we are compelled to stand with and for the full inclusion of every member of the human family to be welcomed to God's bountiful table, "as God has welcomed us."

Because we are the Church together, we find ourselves advocating for justice and unity in the body of Christ celebrating our many gifts. It is for that reason that on Sunday October 5th we celebrate God's call to us to be reconciled one to another and all to Christ in conjunction with World Communion Sunday. At the 2007 General Assembly in Ft. Worth, Texas, Disciples voted to bring together these two related emphases of World Communion Sunday and Reconciliation Ministry offering to exemplify mutuality in our core commitment of Christian unity and its expression in seeking justice in the church and the world, giving particular regard to the sin of racism. On that Sunday, as we celebrate the Lord's Supper in our churches throughout the United States and Canada, we stand in solidarity with Christ's beloved community throughout the world. As we drink the cup of salvation and eat the bread of life, we embrace God's welcome to all as many members, with many gifts at one table.

In Disciples' tradition, that table is limitless. Its boundaries extend outside the church walls and geographical boundaries. The funds from the Reconciliation Ministry Special Offering fund camps that introduce our young people to value the worth of all of God's human gifts. These young people work together to problem solve in camps or on urban missions. Our Regional expressions give grants to programs that address the symptoms of systemic exclusion such as projects that support academic improvement for students in under-funded and under-performing schools. Half of each dollar given during the offering remains in the Regions to fund local initiatives to address racial justice and to give witness to God's abiding love and grace.

Your generous gift to the 2008 Reconciliation Ministry Special Offering will further our witness to be the 21st Century church that God calls us to be, One Church, Many Members, One Body of Christ witnessing from our doorsteps to the ends of the earth!

Will You Be the Gift of Reconciliation?

Yours in Christ,
Reverend April G. Johnson
Minister of Reconciliation