The Jewel Initiative
News
The Christmas season will soon be upon us. In America, this time of gift-giving is met with generosity within our churches and our community. Christmas is celebrated in Mozambique but rarely includes the giving of gifts. During this Advent season, the Mozambique Initiative will be working to provide new resources for churches and individuals to encourage giving a gift to others.Rolled out in Easter 2016, MI reminds churches of The Jewel Initiative. This initiative’s goal is to be a one-stop-shop for churches to show their communities what extravagant generosity and risk-taking mission looks like by providing all of the resources necessary to successfully push the generosity limits of their congregation. The Jewel Initiative currently has two focus areas, fundraising for a safe water well ($12,000 goal) or a microfinance project ($5,000) to encourage sustainability.
What makes this a one-stop-shop? The Jewel Initiative has readymade videos to be shown during worship (2 minutes), sermon and children’s illustrations, examples and success stories from Mozambique and Missouri, fundraising banners to show progress, worship slides, and even an example of a special giving envelope.
All of the information can be found online at www.mzinitiative.com/learn, or if you contact Craig Stevenson at 573-777-1240, he can send you a USB drive of the information for your church to use. If you are in a small congregation who cannot reach the full goal, that’s fine! Craig can work with you to create a smaller giving goal to be in ministry with our brothers and sisters in Mozambique.
In late October, MI will be rolling out a new resource targeted for individual donors and supporters of the Mozambique Initiative. This will be an alternative Christmas gift catalog for families to consider matching what they spend on their individual family’s Christmas celebrations. Be on the look-out in the November Missouri Methodist Magazine for more information.