Homeless Care Packages

LOCAL PARTNERS EXISTS TO BUILD A COLLECTIVE OF INDIVIDUALS, CHURCHES, AND ORGANIZATIONS FOR THE CITY.

IMPORTANT REMINDERS:

Sunday, April 14 - Local Partner Interest Meeting after the Gathering. Please RSVP by clicking the link.

Local Partner Group for information and updates. Please join the group and share with others.

If you’ve been around Fayetteville any amount of time, particularly around the mall or downtown, you notice we have a good amount of visible homeless people. There are a number of mixed opinions as to how to best interact and care for the homeless, especially when you’re on the go and may have kids with you. Because I’ve been heavily involved with Fayetteville Area Operation Inasmuch (Inasmuch), a number of different people have asked me what are the best ways to interact with the homeless. 

I put together a quick instructional video of Homeless Care Packages. This was not my idea originally, I got it from a friend. Putting these packages together and having them with you is a low-hanging fruit as to how to engage the homeless in a way that can bring dignity. The important thing to consider is that these Homeless Care Packages offer you a few different opportunities:

  • To humanize someone who has been dehumanized: 

    • Look the person in the eyes, smile, and say something simple and kind like “stay safe,” or “God bless”

    • If you have time, ask the person’s name and say goodbye using their name (homeless people can go long stretches of time not hearing their own name)

  • To offer a resource for more help should they choose it:

  • To show care and interest without crossing boundaries that make you feel uncomfortable

    • This allows you to be prepared for this interaction and not feel caught-off-guard

In fact, Freedom Christian Academy students recently put together a number of these homeless care packages. Thanks to our own Chrissy Hughes, we have a box of them at Veritas! I will have these sample Homeless Care Packages, as well as representatives from our Local Partners, and some helpful information at the Local Partner Interest Meeting this Sunday, April 14 after the Gathering! Please RSVP here

Local Partner Update

LOCAL PARTNERS EXISTS TO BUILD A COLLECTIVE OF INDIVIDUALS, CHURCHES, AND ORGANIZATIONS FOR THE CITY.

IMPORTANT REMINDERS:
Saturday, April 14 - Local Partner Interest Meeting after the Gathering
Please RSVP by clicking the link
Local Partner Group for information and updates
Please join the group and share with others

PLANS, HOPES, AND DREAMS FOR THE FUTURE

At the beginning of March, I had the opportunity to sit down with Michele Dove, the Site Director of Your Choice Pregnancy Center (through Hand of Hope) and Laura White, the Executive Director of Cypress View Children’s Home. We have been partnering with Hand of Hope for years to support women through pregnancy. Cypress View is a new organization that is planning and working toward building healthy group homes in Dunn, NC for children out of the home through foster care or private placements.

Because this was the first meeting for Michele and Laura, we started with an introduction to our organizations and then shared our testimonies with each other. What a powerful display of the Lord’s providence in our lives!

“I came back to my faith around my mid 30s and every day it’s ‘less of me, more of you, God!’ And this is true joy! That there is truth and joy! It’s not about money or other things. It’s about the basic stability and knowing that I have a God that is my father, and loves me and allows me to love other people. It’s been a journey!” - Michele Dove, Your Choice Pregnancy Center

If you’d like to hear more about our discussion, I’d love to share with you! I’m also hoping to edit an audio recording of the meeting (think discussion-based podcast.)

How can you support Local Partners Collective?

  1. Pray.
    Pray for Michele and the Hand of Hope staff (including our own Katy Engstrom, Veritas Covenant Partner!) Pray they will continue to be empowered by the Spirit to support those experiencing crisis during pregnancy.
    Pray for Laura and her team as they’re in the planning and fundraising stage to get these foster group homes off the ground! Pray the Lord would make their path straight and provide in abundance to support these kids and families.

  2. Consider Financially Supporting.
    Both of these organizations are a good use of the Lord’s money, and Cypress View in particular is building capital funds in the hopes of breaking ground on their group homes within the year. You can donate here.

  3. Consider Volunteering
    Hand of Hope is looking for men and women to disciple young families in need. Many of the clients of Your Choice Pregnancy Center do not often have healthy examples of Christ centered marriage or parenting. If you’d like to volunteer, reach out to Michele at michele@handofhope.net.
    If someone has experience with media editing (iMovie) and is interested in volunteering your time and expertise for the Local Partners Collective, please reach out to me at emilyruth@veritasfayetteville.com.

Bible Reading Plan Tips

It’s December 29th, and we are in a strange land - the land between the seasons. Christmas is finished, and New Years is just a few days away. The week between Christmas and New Years is just odd. I never know what to do with my time. Should I get a head start on my New Years resolution, or should I lie around the house and swear off wearing any pants that contain buttons?

I usually answer the above either/or question with a ‘yes’. Yes… to both. Can you relate?

Speaking of New Years resolutions - many believers that I know start some kind of bible reading plan on January 1, and I am no different. I will be following a chronological bible reading plan this year, and I have been preparing for the launch of this plan with a few other women. We all purchased the same chronological bible, and we will make our way through it over the course of 2024. We are staying in contact with one another throughout the year over a Signal chat. I can’t tell you how excited I am to spend time in the Word in the digital ‘company’ of people who also love the Lord!

When I decided to read through the bible chronologically, I knew that I would need some external motivation to keep me motivated to finish this plan. With the help of our Signal chat community to hold us accountable, it is much more likely that we will stay faithful to finishing our plan this year. In addition to reading through a bible reading plan in community, I’d like to share a few more tips that I’ve picked up from various ministry leaders about how to stick to your plan.

  1. The first tip seems obvious, but it’s worth stating. In order to stick to your plan, you need to have a plan. How will you decide what to read? There are many, many, MANY free bible reading plans available online. You could check out any of the free plans available on the YouVersion Bible App. Another option could be to subscribe to a bible study delivery service like She Reads Truth or He Reads Truth. It doesn’t matter what plan you follow, but you do need to have one.

  2. Decide when you are going to read, and cater your reading routine to the routines that you already have established. If you are not a morning person, don’t try to make yourself fit into the morning-person-mold. You don’t need a pre-sunrise quiet house with a King’s Kaleidoscope playlist on in the background AND freshly brewed coffee AND an autumn-scented candle AND a gel highlighter set AND a comprehensive commentary. You just need your bible. Read it in the parking lot before you walk into work, or when you lay your kids down for nap, or in bed before you go to sleep. Maybe you’d prefer to listen to your bible during your commute instead of reading it? You’re allowed to do that!

  3. If you miss a day, skip it. You heard me - skip it! Perfection is not the goal. Rather, consistency is the goal. You don’t need to have a perfect record, you just need to consistently spend time in the Word of God and allow Him to speak to you through it. Here is a hard truth that I am still learning: If you strive for perfection, you will quit. Maybe you won’t quit after the first or second time you get behind, but you will quit when catching up becomes impossible. So… skip it.

  4. Pray for the Lord to give you the faithfulness that you are striving for. This point seems contradictory to tip number 3, but we can hold two things in tension at the same time. It is God who grants us faithfulness - let’s ask Him for help! Let’s ask God to give us love for His Word and remind us of our reading plan on the days that we are tempted to forget.

  5. Finally, I am going to repeat myself - read your bible in community. If you have the external motivation of a few friends to hold you accountable, then your chances of success are way higher. Grab a buddy!

Have I missed any tips? Let me know! Sincerely,

Samantha Metheny
Director of Operations | Veritas Church
samantha@veritasfayetteville.com

A Christian's Response to Current Events in Israel and Gaza

The recent events that have taken place in Israel and Gaza are yet another example of how broken humanity is. We have seen images and videos of children being kidnapped, festival attendees gunned down, women paraded as trophies, and countless humans killed by Hamas terrorists. As Christians, we should unequivocally condemn these acts. They are direct acts of treason against the One True God, who creates all people and gives them the Imago Dei. In considering the conflict between Israel and the terrorist organization known as Hamas we must understand that there is decades of pain and hatred. This however, is not a justification for the atrocities that the world has witnessed over the past weeks. Following these events, some of you have asked me if we have a biblical obligation as Christians to recognize Israel’s claim to the land on religious grounds. This paper hopes to provide biblical clarity and answer two questions: 1) Who are God’s chosen people and the heirs of his promises? And 2) How should we consider geopolitical events that involve the land currently belonging to the nation-state of Israel?

I recognize that many of you may interpret the following scriptures in different ways than I do, and I want to be clear that Christians can respectfully disagree on these points and still be members of the same church. I hope to offer a persuasive, but not exhaustive, presentation of who God’s people are and how we should consider Israel, but I also ask you to search the scriptures with me, as I am an imperfect man seeking to understand God just like you all!

There are several texts that explicitly discuss the covenant that God made with Abraham in Genesis 12. Ephesians 2:11-3:13, Galatians 3:15-29, and Romans 9:3-8 and 10:5-13 all speak to God’s promises and how they are fulfilled in Jesus. I believe the Bible is explicitly clear that God’s people are, and have always been, those who trust in the Messiah.

Ephesians 2:11-3:13

In this section of Paul’s letter to the Ephesian church, he is directly speaking to Gentile Christians. He begins by reminding the Gentiles that at one time, they were separated from Christ. Not only that, they were also “alienated from the commonwealth of Israel” and “strangers to the covenants of promise.” They had no hope and were completely without God. “But now,” he continues, “because of Christ Jesus,” the believing Gentiles have now been brought near! Not only to God, but to that commonwealth and the covenants of promise that were previously far away from them. Jesus has made us, both believing Gentiles and believing Jews, “one new man in place of the two.” Note that Paul doesn’t say “you Gentiles have now been brought into Judaism,” but that there is now a third people that exists above Jews and Gentiles- God’s people, the Saints (v19). We are now “fellow citizens” with the Jews who have put their faith in Jesus, and members of the same household, because we “both have access in one Spirit to the Father” (v18). Paul then continues in Ephesians 3 to tell us that this amazing revelation that believing Jews and believing Gentiles share the same inheritance has been a “mystery” (3:3-4), that has now been revealed to the apostles and the prophets by the Spirit - v6: “this mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” Paul is making explicitly clear that the people who now have a rightful “claim” to the promises of God are not ethnic Israelites, but those who are in Christ Jesus - God’s people the Saints.

Galatians 3:15-29

In this section of Paul’s letter to the church at Galatia, Paul makes a bold claim- in verse 16, he says that the promises of the Old Testament made by God were “made to Abraham and his offspring.” Then, he launches into a remarkable commentary in 16b: “It does not say ‘And to offsprings,’ referring to many, but to one, ‘And to your offspring,’ which is Christ.” Paul is saying that even from the beginning, the promises of God given to Abraham didn’t belong to all of Abraham’s offspring, but only to Jesus! In verses 17-23, Paul then goes on to explain that the law given to the Israelites did not do away with God’s promise to Abraham’s offspring Jesus, but that it served to hold Jesus’ inheritance until He arrived. But now, (v25) “because faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus [we] are all sons of God through faith.” Paul closes this section by saying that because we are all sons through faith, there is now no ethnic criteria for inheriting the promises of God. Not only that, but there is also no gender or socioeconomic criteria for inheriting the promises given to Jesus. Instead, if we are Christ’s, “then we are Abraham’s offspring,” and now have been made “heirs according to the promise,” alongside Christ Jesus. Here in Galatians 3, Paul is telling us that the criteria for inheriting the promises given to Abraham are not ethnic criteria, but only whether or not one belongs to Christ through faith.

Romans 9:3-8, 10:5-13

In this section of Paul’s letter to the saints in Rome, Paul is addressing the charge that because Israel is not all believers, that God must have somehow failed. “If God cannot be trusted to keep his promise to Israel,” you might ask, “how can I trust him to keep his promise to the Church?” Paul answers this question in verse 6, where he says “it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring…” From the very beginning, Paul is saying, not everyone who has come from Abraham’s seed is a true Israelite. As an example, Paul uses the example of Ishmael and Isaac. Both are Abraham’s sons, but only “through Isaac shall [Abraham’s] offspring be named” (v7). Paul is trying to show us that even from the beginning there has been a “true Israel” within ethnic Israel, and that the unbelief and rejection of God by ethnic Israel in no way does away with God’s promise to the “true Israel.” Verse 8 tells us that “it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God,” which means being born an ethnic Israelite does not make you a true Child of God and therefore an heir to the promises God made to Abraham. Instead “the children of the promise are counted as offspring,” meaning only those descendants who trusted the promise of the coming messiah were counted as “true offspring” of Abraham. Verse 25 quotes from the prophet Hosea and shows that Gentiles would be brought into God’s family as sons when he said, “Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’ and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’” Not only that, verse 26 tells us that we Gentiles would one day be called the “sons of the living God.” Who, then, are God’s beloved and chosen people? Who are the children who are heirs of the promises of Abraham made in the Old Testament? Those who have attained a “righteousness by faith,” (v30). There is now “no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved,” (10:12-13). Where there once were two people, there is now no distinction. The promises of Abraham now belong to any who would call on the name of the Lord.

I hope to have revealed the truths of scripture - that from the beginning, God’s people have always been those who trust in the promise, not just those who have Abraham’s blood flowing through them. If this is true, what do we say about any world events concerning present-day Israel?

If the promises of God may only be claimed by true “heirs,” and as we have seen, becoming an heir is not dependent on ethnicity, then we cannot say that ethnic Israelites or the nation-state of Israel has a divine right or “inheritance” of God’s promises. But we must be very careful not to draw any unbiblical conclusions from this. As a nation-state, Israel has every right to defend its borders and every human right extended to every other nation in rebellion against God- no nation should be treated unjustly, including Israel. We can and should support the righteous pursuit of justice in Israel, and we should pray for the swift defeat of Hamas and restoration of the captives to their families.

As your pastors, we do want to call you to the obligation all Christians share. To love God above all and to love our neighbors more than ourselves. Even in the darkest of times. Right now one of the most powerful ways we can do that is through prayer. Here are three prayer points for this present moment:

Pray for the salvation of ethnic Israelites- Romans 11 tells us that God has not turned his back on ethnic Israel. Though some of ethnic Israel has been “cut off” by their rebellion in sin, we are promised that some will be “grafted back in” by faith in Jesus as Messiah. We should pray that the Lord would continue to gather his people from all the Earth, and that He would use this tragedy that Satan means for evil to be for His ultimate good.

Pray for Israeli and Palestinian Christians- I am personally tempted to fear and doubt God’s goodness at this time, and I imagine our brothers and sisters in Israel and Gaza are feeling that even more so. Pray that our brothers and sisters would be strengthened in their faith and that they would be bold to share the good news of the Gospel that is rejected by both Muslims and Jews. Pray for the local churches to be a shining light in their cities and neighborhoods to a city in ruin.

Pray for the salvation of Hamas leaders- The acts we have all seen (and many more we have been spared from seeing) reveal the depths of sin that many members of Hamas have allowed to reside in their hearts. I don’t want to pray for their salvation. I want for their sin to result in their eternal damnation. But I am also reminded of the depths of my own sin. I don’t deserve salvation. I deserve eternal damnation and separation from God. But God, because of His great love that he has for us, has made us heirs according to the hope of eternal life through the broken body and shed blood of Jesus. Pray that just as he opened your eyes to see your sin and repent of it, he would open the eyes of the members of Hamas and that they would repent and turn to the One True God. Finally, pray for peace and a swift end to the conflict and terrorist attacks in Gaza and Israel.

As your pastors, we hope that this letter will help you and your family to better understand God’s word and pray for the conflict in Israel. If you wish to discuss this more or have any questions, please reach out to us directly- we would be glad to get together for prayer and discussion.

Seeking His Kingdom,

Evan Anthony
Veritas Church Elder

October 16, 2023 Local Partner Update

At Veritas, working with and through our Local Partners are the primary way we minister to people in need within Fayetteville. These organizations have proven to have a heart for our City and its needs, and they show the love of Christ in how they run their ministries. Here are a few recent happenings with our Local Partners:

Operation Inasmuch

Saturday, September 16 was the culminating art show in this series for the Imago Dei Art Project. It was a beautiful event at The Lodge, where these men live. There was a healthy turn out, and many Veritas people stopped in and purchased art to support the men. This show was the fruit of a lot of labor from the men in the Lodge, the OIAM staff and board, and Veritas Partners who make up the Imago Dei Leadership Team.

This art show felt like a bit of a mountain-top moment for all of us, but the work is far from over! We would like to keep this project going so it can be a means of creative expression and supplemental income for more men. We are also looking for volunteers who can come teach life skills and interest based classes during the day for The Living Hope program, which is where we began the Imago Dei Art Project.

Also recently, Operation Inasmuch hosted the 3rd Annual Ray’s Run. This 5K and 10K was a way to honor the memory of Ray Helton, a previous Executive Director who passed away from cancer, as well as raise money for The Lodge. A number of Veritas Covenant Partners came out to support the organization and run!

If you’re interested in helping, click this link to sign up for our Local Partner group.

Hand of Hope

Sunday, September 24 we did a Baby Item Drive or Hand of Hope. Ken and Chrissy Hughes also used this as an opportunity to collect items from FCA, all of that combined filled my caravan to the brim! Michele Dove, the HOH Fayetteville Site Director, was moved by how much was offered to their organization. Watch a brief thank you video from her here. These items will be given to expecting and new mothers who are taking parenting and life-skills classes through Hand of Hope.

Hand of Hope is always looking for people, particularly women, who would like to get involved and support through being a life coach, appointment driver or baby-boutique organizer. With Michele Dove as their new Site Director, they’ve made great strides in organization; if you previously tried to be a volunteer and that stalled out, this would be a great time to reconnect! If you’re new and looking for ways to serve, Hand of Hope is a wonderful place to care for women and children in need!

If you’re interested in helping, click this link to sign up for our Local Partner group.

Habitat for Humanity

One of our Covenant Partners, Maggie Kettler, was able to receive funding for much needed home renovations through Habitat for Humanity. They completely renovated her bathroom, and they did some work in her kitchen. During the work, they noticed that the piping from Maggie’s bathroom to the road was obstructed by a tree root, so they dug up and replaced those. They also did some electrical work on the house.

Along with all of this, Veritas organized a day to support these home projects by putting on gutters that her husband, Matt, had bought but did not have time to install before getting sick and passing away. The group of nearly 20 people from Veritas did yard work, fixed the fence, and put up the gutters.

Here is a message from Maggie:
“I just want to express my heartfelt gratitude for everyone who came today to bless me and my family with their service of love. Words cannot express how grateful I am. I’m praising God for the church family that believes in taking care of the widows and orphans. He is an awesome God and he has given me a wonderful family.”

If you’re interested in helping, click this link to sign up for our Local Partner group.

We believe that as Christians we are called to love God and love people. Much of what we do within Veritas allows us to love our brothers and sisters within Veritas, and that is such a beautiful expression of how we are a family in Christ. But there are many people in Fayetteville who are lost, broken and hurting, and don’t feel Christ’s love. That is why serving with our Local Partners allows us to reach and care for people in Fayetteville whom we would not encounter or talk with (at least in any sort of meaningful way) otherwise. I strongly encourage you to choose one of our Local Partners, and partner with them to put your time, heart, efforts and resources into loving people.

Best and blessings,
Emily Ruth Perry | Director of Community Life