United Methodist 2008 Special Sundays

 

Six times throughout the year, United Methodist congregations celebrate churchwide Special Sundays with offerings.

In 2008 these Sundays will be celebrated on the following dates:

These Special Sundays enable United Methodists like you to offer refuge in times of disaster, promote peace and justice, provide scholarships and student loans, reach out to the community, teach skills to encourage self-sufficiency and share the love of Jesus Christ with God's people everywhere.

In the past at St. Paul's the missions team has set a portion of its budget to be sent as an offering from our church. The team will continue to do this again in 2008. However, in addition to this offering, this year the members will be given an opportunity to provide an additional donation on the specific Special Sunday.

The first Special Sunday of 2008 will be Human Relations Day on January 20. "This Sunday occurs during Epiphany, the season of manifesting God's light to the world. Human Relations Day calls the Church to recognize the right of all God's children in realizing their potential as human beings in relationship with each other. The purpose of the day is to further the development of better human relations." (par. 264:1, The Book of Discipline 2004). Human Relations Day was established by the 1972 General Conference to promote support for the Community Developers, United Methodist Voluntary Service and Police-Community Relations programs. Begun in 1968, the three programs formerly had received support from the churchwide Bishop's Fund for Reconciliation. In 1989 the Youth Offender Rehabilitation Program replaced the Police-Community Relations Program to respond to the growing population of youth offenders and their need for creative redirection.