The Power of Connectionalism
Sometimes we hear churches say, “We’d love to be engaged with Living Waters for the World, but our church is just too small to field a team.” Well, that is NOT a good reason not to be a LWW Initiating Partner! Why? Because the church is a connectional body – if there is not enough funding or not enough people to field a team, then join with another church in your area that has the same problem!
Take the example of Transylvania Presbytery, a group of about 80 Presbyterian churches in the eastern part of Kentucky. One church had almost enough funding for a water system, but not enough team members. Several other churches had one or two people who wanted to be part of a team, but their congregation hadn’t much funding. So, about 14 years ago they decided to form a team composed of anyone from the presbytery who wanted to be on the team, and they solicited whatever funds any of the churches in the presbytery could contribute. Result? Over 50 people from that presbytery – sometimes only one or two from several congregations – have been active participants in the Transylvania LWW team, and they’ve partnered with 18 different communities on the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico in that time!
The picture above is the team that partnered with Tres Reyes. The team consisted of people from five different Presbyterian churches. It was a fascinating, diverse and interesting group of people, joining hearts and hands for a common goal of clean water for their partner community.
So, you see, there really is no such thing as too small!
