On Sunday morning, as our youth led the worship service, seniors Holly Knibb and Rheagan Miles challenged us to “do something difficult.” They talked about overcoming their own fears – from befriending the new kid at camp to learning to live with diabetes – by trusting that God was with them and would give them strength. They approached the very difficult task of speaking in front of the whole church with grace and courage, and inspired us to do something difficult, too.

Sunday night, we set out to do just that. We began the process of raising $480,000 to make some much-needed improvements to our building so we can better do the ministry God is calling us to do. At the orientation meeting, Zip Long, our stewardship consultant, told us that one of the beliefs that guides his work is this: the financial and human resources exist within this church to do what God is calling us to do.

Think about that. If God is calling us to be a place – as our mission statement states – where we know and love God, nurture each other, reach out and welcome all people in the name of Jesus Christ, then we can do this. If God is calling us to be good stewards of our building, we can do this. If God is calling us to welcome people in new ways, we can do this.

The campaign leadership team is in place and already hard at work managing the details. You’ll be hearing more about it over the next few weeks, and you’ll probably be asked to help out with one of the teams. I hope you’ll say yes. I also hope you’ll be praying for our church and our leaders, and about your own involvement.

Sure, this is going to be difficult. It’s a challenge. But Jesus never said following him would be easy. And besides, we’ve got God working with us.

So let’s do this difficult thing and make our youth proud to be part of First Christian Church.