Synopsis:The 2024 Annual Assurance Banquet for Life is fast approaching, and seats are filling up quickly—register soon! As we finalize plans, I’m reminded that true success comes from God, not just our efforts. The banquet isn’t just a fundraiser; it’s a chance to gather in fellowship, encourage and learn from one another, and sow into Assurance’s future. We’ll reflect on our 40 years of mission and cast a vision for the next forty. Join us for an evening of unity, prayer, and forward-looking inspiration.
We are quickly coming up on the 2024 Annual Assurance Banquet for Life. I want to encourage you–if you have not signed up yet to attend, do so quickly! Tables and seats are moving and if things go as they have in year’s past with regard to “last minute sign ups”, we will be at capacity before we know it!
I did want to share a few things that I am hopeful for as we find ourselves in the penultimate stages of planning. As usual, when I feel the pressure of an endless to do list (and only if I am attentive and willing enough to hear it), the still voice of God reminds me that ultimately, He is the one in charge of the success of every effort. Not me. Not our staff. Not our board. Not some best-selling fundraising strategy. Simply, He is the one by which “success” is even defined, much less achieved.
This is important because the “work” aspect of planning a banquet can easily and subversively take precedent over the “why.” It can put us out of focus. It can distract us from what really is to be sought or gained. Of course, any banquet is a “fundraiser”, but if that is the primary why, I can assure you that focus will be lost. No ministry seeking to do God’s work in this world and in this culture should fall into the temptation of trusting events and human efforts as the source of sustainability. The why must be deeper for the ministry as the reliance upon God for his sustainability of it.
As I have thought through our why for our banquet next month, I have landed on three things that I wanted to share with you. These are opportunities that undergird the very purpose of holding the Assurance banquet.
First, we have a real opportunity and invitation for fellowship.
One thing I can guarantee you: neither I nor anyone at Assurance is interested in doing an event for its own sake. If you’ve ever planned an event before, you know that only really weird people actually enjoy event planning. Logistics. Timetables. Contracts. Itineraries. And the dreaded multitude of opinion! Those things alone are enough to make one wonder “what are we even doing?!”
But this is much easier to handle when we realize that bringing individuals into a shared space around a shared mission is first and foremost a presenting opportunity to fellowship together, to belong to each other, to coalesce around a vision and a conviction in unison. One of the things that I shared with our event committee (these people actually do enjoy itineraries, oddly enough) is that I have been impressed with a conviction that we are calling the Church into a shared space together. Jesus reminds us that when two or three are gathered together, there He is! How much more is this true when four or five hundred are gathered together in unity around a singular mission: to save and serve lives!
Secondly, this is an opportunity to be encouraged and learn!
One of the reasons we have Dr. Francis as our keynote speaker for this event is because of the increased cultural talking points equivocating abortion with healthcare and a general public insinuation that the general scope of the medical profession is adamantly and convincingly on the side of fetal non-personhood. Neither of these are the case but they do signify continual cultural evolution and drift that can leave all of us committed to serving those facing unplanned pregnancies feeling discouraged. By contrast to the cultural insinuations, Dr. Francis represents a “love them both” approach in her work that does not compromise care for the unborn or care for the patient. In particular, we want anyone involved in healthcare to know that there is a great community of people who don’t buy into the idea that to choose women’s health, one must choose to de-value or subjectivize the sanctity of pre-natal life.
Furthermore, as I have recently re-read through our founding documents, one thing stood out to me that could easily get missed. Part of our mission includes education. This is not strictly limited to client education. It is education for anyone that seeks to know more, to be involved, and to commit themselves to the life cause!
Third, we have an opportunity to sow into the next stage of Assurance’s life.
There is a well-known proverb that says, “Blessed are those who plant trees under whose shade they will never sit.” I hope that we communicate directly and convincingly the past legacy of Assurance, especially as we approach our 40th year in mission, while casting future vision for the next forty years. One thing that has been salient to me since I came into this organization last October is the importance of the forty-year mark as a meaningful milestone. Indeed, as I increasingly approach my own fortieth year and reflect on what the first forty years of my life have been, I am simultaneously asking myself how I want to live the second half of my life: what do my second forty years look like? Or, in the words of the late Chuck Colson, “How now shall I live?” Likewise, we at Assurance want to take this next year and reflect on the first forty years of Assurance and pave the way for its “second half.” What does this look like? How will Assurance be led into the next three generations? What kind of work and expression will it take on? How will it engage in a world that looks very different than the one it was even founded in?
At Assurance, we want to be looking forward as we look backwards, learning and listening to God’s plan for the future work this ministry will do, while also celebrating the work He has done through it since its inception. I think I can speak for all of us at Assurance when I say, “Let’s plant some more trees that will still be providing shade forty years from now.” And the banquet provides some tree planting opportunities.
I encourage you, again, to sign up while we have seats and tables remaining. This will not be a banquet you will want to miss. Invite friends, colleagues, pastors, and more! And remember, the program will officially run 6.30 – about 8.20 or so but we will be opening up a side room for a time of unstructured prayer and worship around 5.30 p.m. This organization is only as strong as the prayers and supplication that carry it. We hope you join us.
