Greetings!
I received a new coffee cup for Christmas. Not just any old coffee cup, mind you. It's not colorful and it doesn't have a cute saying on the front that makes people laugh. In fact, this coffee cup doesn't have anything written on it, and it looks about as boring as a coffee cup could look. But this coffee cup is not about form as much as it is about function. It's not about how it looks, it's about what it does (more on that later).
As we evaluated our programs and what has been accomplished over the past year, it was easy to start to think about how pretty our programs look, how shiny and attractive they are, and how creative our catchphrases are. It was easy to start to care more about the programs than the people we serve.
As we begin the new year, I want to assure you that at ECM, we will never focus more on programs than people. Our mission is to transform lives in Jesus' name by offering hope, help, and dignity to children, families, and communities. Our mission and vision have little to do with programs, except to utilize them to accomplish the mission of transforming lives with the gospel.
We are not the flashiest of organizations and have no aspiration to be so. Of course, we have a great desire to build excellent programs using tried and true as well as cutting edge methods. But we do that for two reasons: to bring honor to God through excellence, and to be as effective as we can be in carrying out our mission.
We are grateful for our partners who recognize and support our insatiable desire to use new and creative methods to bring the hope of Jesus to the children we serve. We could not build up programs like Next Step or introduce programs like Family Empowerment without that level of confidence and support.
We continue to be faithful stewards of every gift we receive, and we promise to do all we can to make sure our programs always support our mission, not the other way around. Thanks for standing with us in 2021, and again in 2022!
Here's to function!