Above + Beyond Sunday

Hey Destiny family, 

If you would, please give us a few minutes to share our heart with you. 

Throughout this unexpected year, Destiny Foursquare, with the leading of Holy Spirit, has continued to impact lives in a big way! Earlier this year, you ministered to hundreds of families and orphans in Honduras by giving to our partner in ministry, Tiffany Mares, through Via Love International. And this Fall, you helped us reach out to our local community by funding the well-received and highly celebrated family-fun offered at our Trunks and Treats event, and through meals given out through our Thanksgiving Box Outreach. Just recently, together, you gave and helped us cover all the costs for our children’s ministry room update, which is happening right now!

It is our prayer that we would be a people known for our generosity in Rapid City and the surrounding region. We have been forever changed by God’s giving! He brought us into His family through His nature of generosity. So let’s take that gift and live to impact the world for His name’s sake! 

And, can we just say that we have the most incredible community! We could not be more grateful for each and every one of you who sows into the mission of Destiny Foursquare to fuel personal revival to disciple lives and share the Good News of Jesus around the whole world! We are humbled by your giving. Let this be a season where we see a spirit of breakthrough and outpouring upon every individual and household! 

All of that said, we want to be upfront and honest with you. Like many organizations this year, our giving has been impacted through a lot of variable factors. Nationwide, church attendance has dropped since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Barna Group reports that up to 1-in-5 churches are considering closing their doors in the United States in 2020 as a result of the financial impacts of this year. And, as we’re still in a situation, locally, where several of our church family is attending online, it’s hard to measure exactly what’s going on. 

We are so happy to have begun to offer live streaming of our Sunday morning services this year. We have seen many new faces and many more engaging online than we have ever seen! With that, though, and the obvious shift in on-site attendance, we’ve experienced significantly lower giving going into this Fall. Statistically, for a lot of people, if they are not attending on-site, they are also not tithing and/or giving. It happens every time we have to cancel a service for the weather. The giving for that weekend is typically pretty dismal, since familiar ways of giving (for some) are not available. 

When an organization operates on giving, as the church does — specifically the concept of tithes and offerings as described in the scriptures — we get impacted fairly quickly when regular giving doesn’t happen. Our budget for everyday things has to be cut. And just to let you know, we’ve done our best to be very frugal this year — operating on a spending freeze in many of our regular budget line items throughout a majority of this year. Again, like a lot of unknowns in 2020, we aren’t completely certain for all the reasons for this drop in giving, but our last three months have been especially low. It could very well be the social-economic impact from a very tough year. We just don’t know. 

What we do know is that God is faithful! And that He is our provider! Not only that, but He is your provider, too. And that we have been praying for you — for God to show Himself as provider and sustainer for you and your family, and for our local church. We don’t want to slow down on our mission of helping the spiritually hungry experience God and discover purpose and destiny through free and open worship, biblical training, and release into personal ministry! 

With that, we are asking you to simply ask Holy Spirit about giving. And we’ve been talking about, this coming weekend, calling it ABOVE + BEYOND Sunday. Where we are simply asking you to listen and follow the lead of whatever Holy Spirit directs you to do. We will never beg or plead. In fact, we’re not even going to make a big deal of the offering this weekend. We’re just asking you to do three things: 

1. Consider faithfully tithing, especially if that has not been a habit in your life. It’s just one part of what keeps the Gospel mission of Jesus moving forward. If you want to learn more about tithes and offerings, listen to Pastor Shawn’s message, “The Chain of Debt”. Another good one on the topic is “Being Generous”. Both messages share about a lifestyle of giving and why it’s so important.
2. Pray with us, that we will see the God of “more than enough” provide, both for your family, and our church family, in “above and beyond” ways. And then, lastly… 
3. Consider what you can give this weekend, ABOVE + BEYOND what you would normally give. No pressure. Just offering up whatever God leads you to give. 

2 Corinthians 9:7-8: “Let giving flow from your heart… God is more than ready to overwhelm you with every form of grace, so that you will have more than enough of everything — every moment and in every way. He will make you overflow with abundance in every good thing you do.” 

Can you come into agreement with us on that? We are full of faith, awe, and wonder. And more than ready for God to do what only He can do! He’s the one who offers the THRILL OF HOPE from the tiny, insignificant little town of Bethlehem, from the humblest of beginnings, to become the hero in our story of rescue! Will you join in great expectation for all that God is going to continue to do through the family of believers here at Destiny? 

Thanks for your time. And thank you for praying with us about ABOVE + BEYOND Sunday coming up this weekend.