Churches embody love as mission offerings resources unite under ‘A Year of Love’

At St. John’s United Church of Christ, every month is designated for a particular mission that the church collectively supports, and they find creative ways to visually represent their efforts.

The mission committee of the congregation in Emmaus, Pennsylvania, has hung backpacks along the sanctuary pews when collecting school supplies. They have built a toilet paper mountain as congregants donated these for a local initiative to support families with accessing household necessities. And they stock up on offering envelopes and graphics to promote the UCC Special Missions Offerings.

Throughout the year, the church alternates its focus between local and national efforts, a move that is intentional, said Linda Roosa, who chaired the church Mission Committee for 20 years. Among the national focuses are UCC Missions Offerings, which offer a meaningful connection with the National Ministries, Roosa said.

“Of course we love to help locally, as it’s sort of a natural thing that people do,” she said, “and the UCC leads us to donate to other things we might not be aware of, like the American Indian Ministry, or other churches in the world that have specific needs. There are some places that a local church doesn’t have the resources to get to or the know-how, and the National church provides that. And the local church is good for the National church in that it gathers more people to be involved.”

‘To embody love in action’

This year, in particular, UCC National Ministries staff have invited congregations to participate in the Special Missions Offerings with a new, united focus of “A Year of Love” for all four offerings.  

This means that the four Special Mission Offerings each have a unique theme connected to engaging in the work of love: One Great Hour of Sharing is “Our Love Offering to the World;  Strengthen the Church is “Sent Forth in Love;” Neighbors in Need is “Walk in Love,” and The Christmas Fund is “The Greatest of these … love.”   

“This is an invitation to think of each special offering not as a random fundraiser, but as one part of a yearlong process of growing in our love and care for one another,” said the Rev. Rachel McDonald, UCC generosity officer for Our Church’s Wider Mission (OCWM).

“The ‘Year of Love’ theme frames each offering as a different expression of the same core calling: to embody love in action,” said the Rev. Paul Ramsey, director of Church Relations and Philanthropy for The Pension Boards of the UCC.

The thematic materials to resource congregations in sharing about the Special Mission Offerings are available three months ahead of each offering’s suggested date, though congregations are welcome to use them at any time.

‘An exponential web of care’

The Special Missions Offerings theme based around love is intended to draw attention to the many layers of connection within the wider church, built on a network of relationships that is a great strength, McDonald reflected. For instance, the international partners and efforts of Church World Service, Bread for the World, ACT Alliance, Global Ministries, and UCC Global HOPE are all supported through One Great Hour of Sharing.

“Each of those partners has even more partners, so it’s an exponential web of care. It means we in the UCC get to show up in an oversized way. We could each do these things on our own, but collaboratively, we’re a lot more powerful and can have a much greater impact. That’s the point of the Special Mission Offerings,” McDonald said.

These four Special Mission Offerings were created through a 1999 General Synod Resolution – one that McDonald likes to remind people has been particularly practical and impactful.

“Our intention was really faithful in these. It wasn’t about how can we raise money for ourselves – it was about how we can demonstrate God’s love in a variety of ways that is more powerful as collective witness,” she said. “It’s our chosen collective witness, and it holds up.”

Finding joy in giving

At St. John’s UCC, Roosa has found it key to invite a joyfulness into the practice of giving. She recalls, long ago, finding a $5 bill on the ground and putting it toward a donation to Church World Service, which was the first international missions organization she learned about. There was an element of joy and fun in that, she said.

in one church worship service, she encouraged the person offering the “mission moment” about the church rummage sale to wear a silly hat that had been donated for the sale. “It’s a funny little thing that worked so well,” she said. “I tried to run the mission committee in this way – that it’s fun to find these ways to share and give together.”

As each church offers its gifts in these varied ways, they practice resource-sharing as an act of love.  

“Ultimately, ‘A Year of Love’ reinforces the idea that giving is not just transactional,” Ramsey said. “Rather, it is a spiritual formation, inviting congregations and individuals to practice love repeatedly, intentionally, and in diverse ways, shaping both individual faith and communal identity.”

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