community 3/2020: Receiving good things and doing good
An edition filled with trust and good things. The new edition of community gives courage and showcases successful aid projects. It shows how faith can be explained and how it can practised.
In more than 70 countries, community is distributed as a printed copy—mainly to Church members who do not have access to the Internet. The magazine can also can also be viewed in our digital library on nac.today and downloaded as a PDF; this applies to this issue as well as to all previous editions. The magazine is available in many languages, some with regional sections that feature news from the respective regional church.
Trust in God
“In distressing situations that leave us with problems that seem almost impossible to resolve we call for a strong God. ‘Lord, help!’ is how prayers are formulated in such uncertain times.” And this does not only apply to the coronavirus pandemic. The sufferings of mankind are many and varied: hunger, war, persecution. “We too might be confronted with difficult situations. Then the Holy Spirit tells us not to panic or maybe even blame God for our misery,” Chief Apostle Jean-Luc Schneider explains in the editorial and asks us to trust in God.
Receiving good things
“In every divine service the Lord does great things for us: He forgives us our sins,” the Chief Apostle reminds us in a divine service he conducted in Kuala Lumpur in Indonesia. It is important that we remember this and think about it regularly.
The latest issue of community offers the Chief Apostle’s sermon in full and many impulses for reflection and application.
Doing good things
Deep down everybody wants to do good. Unfortunately, we fail more often than not. Let’s not give up though! That is the motto. The sermon is about sowing and harvesting and the exhortation to focus on the will of God and the example of Jesus Christ. This well-known theory is the subject of Chief Apostle Schneider’s travel report to our brothers and sisters in Haiti.
How this can be actively implemented is featured in the Global News section of community. Here readers find information about measures taken by the Church’s aid organisations to support agricultural and self-sufficiency projects, to build a health centre, but also to fund ongoing training initiatives for teachers in the Church context.
community is published once each quarter, consists of 32 pages, and boasts a great deal of content, including core thoughts from divine services by the Chief Apostle. It also reports on how our members live in congregations around the world, features information on the activities of the Church’s relief organisations, explains doctrinal aspects, and carries Bible stories for children.
Photo: NAC Southeast Asia