John Dolbec, left, of Ministry on the Margins, accepts the donations from (left to right) Rev. Lou Whitmer, Rev. Karl Kroger, and Rev. Cory Thrall. Photos courtesy of Legacy and McCabe UMCs.

Legacy and McCabe United Methodist churches in Bismarck, North Dakota, purposefully designated their Christmas offerings to the same local projects Youthworks and Ministry on the Margins. The congregations recently delivered checks for $15,000 to both organizations.  

The idea for collective generosity spawned when Rev. Karl Kroger, lead pastor at McCabe UMC, and Rev. Cory Thrall, lead pastor at Legacy UMC, attended Leadership Institute at the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas. 

 “Adam Hamilton shared Christmas offering ideas and proposed to people in the room, ‘What if United Methodist got together in a community for an offering?’ Cory and I looked at each other and thought, ‘Hey, maybe we could do that.’ We already had Christmas offerings that we dedicated to others,” said Pastor Karl. “We realized that it would be a powerful witness to work together.”

First, the two congregations joined in a connectional effort through an invitation from the United Way for the weekend backpack program in Bismarck. The United Way requested 1,600 jars of peanut butter and jelly to send home with a loaf of bread as extra food on long weekends or vacations from school. When there is a break from school, children become anxious about hunger. Legacy, McCabe, and Calvary UMCs collected jars of peanut butter and jelly in early December. 

“It was a success,” said Rev. Lou Whitmer, associate pastor at McCabe UMC. “McCabe alone collected over 800 of the 1600 that were needed. The donations poured in. Some people had cases of peanut butter and jelly delivered from Amazon.”  

Pastor Lou invited people to donate during a sermon, using a scripture passage from Hebrews 10:24: “Provoke one another to do good works.”

“I asked people to turn to their neighbor and provoke them to bring peanut butter and jelly for 1,600 hungry children,” Pastor Lou said.

The United Way facility is located in Bismarck, where the Open Door Ministry was previously located. Open Door now operates at McCabe UMC.  It was an opportunity to reconnect in ministry at that location. 

The first step was gathering jars of peanut butter and jelly for the weekend backpack program.

“It was sweet to be able to connect with United Way at the very location where a United Methodist ministry was once located,” said Pastor Karl. “It was a delight to see people bring in their donations. Sometimes, people need a simple and straightforward way to love their neighbor. We did not quite get the 1,600, but we were close.”

Continued conversations at Legacy and McCabe led to the serendipitous decision by both congregations to dedicate their Christmas offering to the same nonprofit organizations in the community, Ministry on the Margins and Youth Works. 

For 16 years, Legacy UMC has done “Half a Christmas.” It is an invitation for congregation members to share a gift of money equal to one-half the amount they would spend on Christmas gifts and celebrations. Legacy selected Youth Works and Ministry on the Margins this year as recipients. A new twist was to invite McCabe United Methodist Church to join the offering.

“We invite families to spend half as much as they normally do on their Christmas celebration and gifts with a donation to nonprofit organizations in the community. Legacy has been doing this for a while. The ad council selected the two recipients," said Pastor Cory Thrall. “I thought that it would be fun to show our United Methodist connection in this community, so we invited McCabe to join us.”

McCabe and Legacy present their donation to Youthworks.

McCabe UMC met to determine where to dedicate its Christmas offering. The congregation had a practice of giving the offering away to an organization. The board determined that they would dedicate the Christmas offering to Ministry on the Margins and Youth Works, the same organizations that Legacy had selected.

“It was a positive experience. There was no sense of competition. This is how we, as United Methodists, can work together to impact the community positively,” said Pastor Cory. “It was us working together to love our neighbor.”

There are no definite plans for connectional opportunities in the near future. However, the leadership and pastors at Legacy and McCabe look forward to continued conversations and opportunities to share the United Methodist connection.