Special Sundays are designated Sundays throughout the year that provide opportunities for giving. These special offerings are earmarked and support designated ministries.
On these Sundays, we empower our congregations to give toward causes and organizations that promote sustainable life change. These offerings help offer refuge in times of disaster, promote peace and justice, provide scholarships, reach out to the community, teach skills to encourage self-sufficiency, and share the love of Jesus Christ with God’s people everywhere.
For 2024, Soapstone UMC has chosen:
March 24 – UMCOR
July 28 – Methodist Children’s Home
October 6 – UMCOR in response to Hurricane Helena
We will collect an offering on each of these dates using a special offering envelope during worship, or you can give online here. Read about each of these below.
It is involved globally in direct ministry to persons in need. UMCOR comes alongside those who suffer from natural or human-caused disasters – famine, hurricane, war, flood, fire or other events—to alleviate suffering and serve as a source of help and hope for the vulnerable. UMCOR provides relief, response and long-term recovery grants when events overwhelm a community’s ability to recover on their own. UMCOR also provides technical support and training for partners to address emerging and ongoing issues
related to disaster relief, recovery, and long-term health and
development.
How UMCOR Works
Originally founded in 1940 in response to displaced and vulnerable populations in the wake of World War II, The United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) is a ministry of The United
Methodist Church through the General Board of Global Ministries. Our goal is to assist the most vulnerable people affected by crisis or chronic need without regard to their race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. We believe all people have God-given worth and dignity.
Support UMCOR’s Work
- Pray: UMCOR is undergirded by the power of prayer – both in the hours after a disaster strikes and through recovery.
- Make supply kits: Assemble relief supply kits to help keep UMCOR’s Relief Supplies Network ready to deliver goods in the hands of survivors (U.S. only)
- Volunteer: U.S. volunteer efforts are arranged through annual
conferences; reach out to your conference disaster relief
coordinator to learn more. - Give: To provide support where it is most needed.
UMCOR – Sunday, March 24 we will collect an offering supporting UMCOR’s work of alleviating human suffering around the world including disaster relief and supplies, disaster risk reduction, health, and humanitarian development. Gifts to the UMCOR cover UMCOR’s costs of doing business. This helps UMCOR keep the promise that 100 percent of any gift to a specific UMCOR project will go toward that project, not administrative costs. The UMCOR Sunday offering is the primary funding stream for the administrative costs of UMCOR. Learn more here.
Methodist Home for Children – Sunday, July 28 we will collect an offering for the children served by MHC – children who come from empty homes, failing in school, looking for acceptance in all the wrong places. Neglected, abused, traumatized. Children deserve a safe, loving home where they can thrive and live to their full God-given potential. At Methodist Home for Children, we build on strengths, nurture goals, create opportunities, and prepare children and families to shape their own futures. But the needs of those in our care extend far beyond the basics. They require more than a quick fix. What started as an orphanage in 1899, has evolved and expanded to provide the best in evidence-based services for children and families throughout North Carolina regardless of religion, race, or socioeconomic status. Removing kids from bad situations is just the start; we want to break self-destructive cycles and point children and families toward a positive future. We rely on private gifts and grants to support the many programs that prepare children in crisis to reach their full, God-given potential.
We work so that all in our care – children and families – have the hope and the skills they need to build healthy,
self-sufficient, and productive lives. “We see hope in each one of them – and you bring that hope to life. Thank you for believing and forgiving.”