Way to Go Indian Creek! It’s been hard to sit on such good news and I finally get to congratulate you on the Live Out LOUD offering. On Christmas Sunday we gave our largest offering of the year away! There were 285 families who generously contributed. That is 150 more families/or individuals than typically give on an average week. And of those 25 were first time givers. Are you ready for the grand total? Nearly $73,000 was contributed to the four causes for which we are so passionate. We gave it all away to causes outside of ourselves and it felt so good!

I’m more convinced than ever of several things. Jesus was right when He said it is more blessed to give than to receive. Giving is God’s way of opening our heart to partnership. First we get exposed then engaged and inevitably entangled. There are times we must let our heart lead our head. You can trust God because He is faithful. You can never out give Him. The needs around us are greater than we know and greater than our own. Those are the lessons I’m learning. I’m interested to know what lessons you are learning. Will you share them here in the comments section?

As you know we have our own set of needs and opportunities at Indian Creek. Your faithful giving keeps this need-meeting ministry growing. Please help us finish the year strong. And just to show you how God is faithful, the week before we gave away our offering we received a gift for $100,000 from an estate.  We believe we have a budget for 2010 that gives us the ability to balance spending and income based on ’09 actual giving. We are making progress, not the least of which is, that we are growing generous hearts for the Jesus mission which helps us live on less so we can give more.

I love Indian Creek and I’m so thankful for what we are allowing God to do in and through us.