Christmas Offering 2023
One of our favorite traditions as a church is the Christmas Offering — a special over-and-above offering we give to raise necessary funds for ministry projects inside and outside our church.
Since our first Christmas Offering in 2012, we’ve been able to use these funds (nearly $1 million total) to do things like:
Buy an ultrasound machine for Vineyard Pregnancy Center
Pay off more than $7 million in medical debt for people in our local community
Invest in the launch of new non-profits like Immigrant Hope and WeReconcile
Support local gospel-preaching church plants
Bless AZ Reach, a ministry that provides mentoring for at-risk high school students
Provide leadership development opportunities for interns and residents
and much more!
This year’s Christmas Offering will support three initiatives under the headings of close, near, and far (modeled after the outward ripple of mission from Acts 1:8). In each case, we’re able to take existing priorities and partnerships to the next level.
Close: Best Friend Grants
We talk frequently about our church being the “best friend” our community has. This year’s offering will provide a fresh and creative way to invest in that vision.
A portion of this year’s Christmas Offering will be set aside to provide “Best Friend Grants” to people in our congregation doing missional work to bless the community.
Do you have a ministry idea that you’d like to pursue? Some way that you, your family, or small group could creatively be a blessing to your neighborhood or some other local need? If so, you could apply for a “Best Friend Grant,” and potentially receive up to $5,000 to implement it.
Near: Expansion in Juarez
One of our dearest partners over the years has been Missions Ministries, which partners with local churches outside of Juarez, Mexico to provide homes, medical clinics, after-school programs, and more.
We now have an opportunity to help them expand in two specific ways:
Expanding the space where they host a weekly youth ministry. This ministry, which Gateway supports monthly, consistently reaches about 80 students from local churches, and they need more space. We hope to help them fund and build this expansion.
Expanding a local church facility. Some years back Gateway’s Christmas Offering helped fund the construction of a new church building. Gateway volunteers went down to build it. Now that same church needs additional space, and we’d like to help them build multiple classrooms and bathrooms so that they can do even more effective ministry.
Far: Persecuted Pastors
As we’ve studied Revelation this fall, we’ve seen the importance of standing firm in the face of persecution. For some of our partner pastors in Turkey, this persecution is significant. One pastor has had to leave the country, and others have faced the threat of being removed, with their non-Turkish wives seen as potential threats to national security.
These pastors and their families have experienced tremendous hardship, and we want to provide some tangible gifts to ease their burden. Specifically, these gifts will go toward educational opportunities for their children as well as relieving the burden of legal fees (and potentially other ways).
