Our Lord's introduction to the EGGS project
Eggs in a box are equal. Hens in a hen house are equal. The farmer looks after them and keeps them fed, protected, and guided. Each egg is unique and special, although they may look alike in many ways. Each egg is needed. Each hen is unique, and so is each egg. Yet often they do more together than individually. If you open a box of eggs, and one of the dozen is missing, it leaves an empty space. It is off balance. The same is true in a ministry. Each person is unique and offers something special, needed, and different, but together you can do even more. You can change the world. In a team of people doing evangelism, or any work or ministry where you bring my love, words, and reality to the world, it is clear that many different gifts and people are needed.
Each person is called to evangelize, and that is about going out in my name, giving my love to others, and sharing my words and reality to save people and bring them hope. To do that you use your unique gifts, but you may also need the help of another person and his or her egg to make it happen. You may even need a third egg who always offers good and creative ideas. How do hens work together? How does it all happen? You work together humbly and faithfully. You listen to me and to others with patience and an open heart. You share plans and hope and ideas. The EGGS Project can meet the needs of the world when everyone sees the greater call to share my love, words, and reality in this new way in the year ahead. The EGGS Project is about ministry, gifts, and reaching out to share my love in your own way and with others. The year ahead will change your life because you will be giving it to me so I can use you with other “eggs” to save my people. You are ready.
All are needed. All the eggs are different. They need one another and the gifts they each have. Coming together brings about miracles and change, so my love can go out. Individuals are called and empowered to evangelize. A church and its congregation are called to evangelize. They are called to bring people to me and to their church each week. All are called, not just one person in your life, town, church, mission, or community. This call did not skip you. I want each person in the church to take my call and work. Use your own specific gifts and just do it. Share your talents with others to form small groups that can do bigger projects.
I need you to do your share to bring my love, words, and reality to the world. That is the plan. That is the only plan. That is the plan for this year, and it begins now with Epiphany. The call is for all, whether single or married, old or young, adult, teen, junior high student, and college age. It is for people of all races, denominations, gifts, talents, and personalities. I do hope for growing enthusiasm over the year, and I do believe it will happen if you jump in and make this commitment of “eggs” for me. It will enable you to bless others and change the world in my name and in your own unique way.
You have a ministry that will use your gifts in many ways or more ways. Just get going! Maybe a ministry you have felt called to do is waiting for you to be involved or support it with your own gifts and prayer. There is no reason, none on this earth, that you cannot use your time, gifts, and talents to help others and share my love. You will be more blessed by your giving and doing than you can imagine. Each egg will be used on its own and with others to change this world into a place where my love is made real.
How do you find out what your call or gift is? How do you know what ministry to do or find? What would I ask you to do? I am going to make it easy for you to begin. There is an egg waiting for you to pick it up. It has your name on it. Each egg has been prayed for. Each egg is unique. No two are alike. And I have more than 800 waiting in the Hen House to be asked for, picked up, hatched, and used. I am using plastic eggs to hold each unique call or ministry, as real eggs might break when they are sent out. I have a team of people who will prayerfully find your egg and send it to you (or you can pick it up at the Words of Blessing Chapel.) In each egg you will find words from me, such as “you have a gift of…” or “the mission to be met is…” or “find three others to help you…” or “I ask you to use your gifts and talents to…” Eggs may reveal a call or ministry that needs a family, a group or team, some friends, another individual, or a couple. Pray about what your Egg Ministry may need.
The weekly words you receive will continue to give you support, words to share, guidance from me, and new ways to think of how to meet this need. Eggs will be the focus of my words for the year ahead. You will begin to see what eggs are in the church, what your gifts are, and what to do with them. You will discover new ways to use your gifts and to realize you may need others to accomplish your call. You may find you have one gift but several ways that I need you to use your gifts. You may find your call is seemingly simple but if you combine it with someone else’s gift you may discover that there is a powerful ministry and call that you both had not thought of.
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Instructions for Requesting an Egg
As mentioned above, Jesus has given the Words of Blessing Ministry descriptions of 800 individual ministries (so far) waiting to be given to people who ask for them and who are willing to commit to that ministry for the coming year. All you have to do is send us a request.
(Click HERE for request form)
Please use form rather than a regular email
Your request will be prayed for and the description of a ministry will be placed in a plastic egg and mailed to you. Ministries have been designated for persons who are middle school age and above, but you are encouraged to involve younger children, where appropriate, in accomplishing your ministries. Please keep in mind the following details:
- A person may request one egg, and only one egg, this year.
- Complete the request form and mail it to us, or email the relevant
information to eggs@wordsofblessing.com. Some ministries have been designated specifically for men, women, or teens, so it’s important to provide us with all the information we’ve asked for.
- Eggs will be mailed from the Words of Blessing Chapel in batches, so be patient in waiting for your request to be filled. (And any donations to help offset the cost of postage are welcome!)
- We must have names of people before we can send out eggs. In other words, we would not fill a request for “the four people in my Bible study,” but we would fill a request for “Chris Smith, Jane Doe, John Jones, and Sally Brown, who are in my Bible study.”
Examples of ways to request eggs include the following:
- You could request one egg for yourself.
- You could sign up as a family to receive a batch of eggs.
- You could ask the members of your Bible study, book group, or other group to ask for eggs and commit to supporting each other’s tasks.
- You could gather a group of friends to request eggs together and commit to meeting regularly to share the weekly words and support each other’s ministries.
- A parish could take this on as a project, asking all interested parishioners to sign up for an egg.
Again, the important thing to remember is that all persons receiving an egg should ask for an egg, and eggs will only be sent to a specific person (i.e., we need a name and contact information).
Throughout this yearlong project the Lord has emphasized the importance of being part of a church community and attending regular worship services. He says, “Church is vital. Bring people, go each week, help, and use your gifts. Be part of the work, ministry, teaching, and all. Be a support to others in all ways.” The Lord has also emphasized that it’s important for people to support each other in the egg ministries they have received. Meeting regularly with a group to share the weekly words and to share progress in the ministries is one way to do this.
Why is the Lord adamant that all eggs must be requested by a specific person? The answer seems to be twofold. First, this is an outreach based on evangelism, so it’s important for each one of us to take a risk and talk to others about Jesus and how real he is and to invite people to ask for an egg. Second, each ministry Jesus gave us to accomplish is unique. If you give an egg to someone who does not ask for an egg, is not open to receiving it, or has no intention of doing the task, then that is an amazing ministry that may never be accomplished and a group of people who won’t be helped. So be prayerful, thoughtful, and intentional about inviting people—whether stranger or friend—to be involved in the EGGS Project. When you invite someone to ask for an egg, give him or her time to pray and relfect on the decision.
And remember, the project will be running throughout 2007, so you may request your egg at any time you feel ready to take on the commitment. You do not have to request an egg now.
Click HERE to access form for ordering eggs.
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Once Your Eggs Arrive
If you have requested a batch of eggs for a group, each person should select one of the eggs in the box (note that the eggs will not have individual names written on them). Open your egg, read the words, and then pray about it. Your egg may offer you a gift, call, or ministry to try, experience, lead, or support. If a ministry does not seem right for you, you trade eggs, after prayer and before the ministry gets going (but you can’t send it back to us!).
Please put the original of the words in the egg, or better yet a copy, in a safe place as we have no way of determining who got which task if the words are misplaced or lost.
Once you have read about your ministry, following are some further instructions from the Lord about how you can go about accomplishing the ministry or call you have been given in your egg.
- Be active, start this ministry, and lead it in your town, church, community, or country or in the world. Before you start, you may need to learn more about the ministry and determine how and where to do it. But begin now. For one year I ask you to do this kind of ministry .
- If you have a ministry that you feel called to do right now, but do not see how you can do this particular ministry 100%, then I ask you to support this kind of ministry through personal involvement or by helping another person who is doing such a ministry. Your support could come in the form of action, notes, prayer, or words for one year. You can come up with ideas or even spend time learning more about it. So support this ministry actively if you cannot do it yourself.
- You can find a few others whose egg gifts and call complement and/or support your gifts or your specific task and work. You can work with a team as long as part of what you are doing is your specific task and call.
- You may be called to work on a team where there is one overall ministry that involves several parts or has other ministries within it. I ask you to work as a team with a call and ministry that comes together as one specific ministry. For example, a soup kitchen ministry might be a work where you may need different gifts but your one purpose is to feed the poor, support those in need, and reach out to the community. One person involved may have the gift of evangelism; another, the gift of mercy, and still another, the gift of organization. Together you could create this ministry.
If someone struggles with his or her egg, ask this person to pray for discernment and to be open. Pray for this person as well. Suggest that this person pray about different ways to look at the task. Encourage this person to think of ways the egg ministry or task could be combined with someone else’s work or task, and thus a whole new way of accomplishing the task could be created.
Remember these words from Jesus: “An eggs experience changes, blesses, encircles, enriches, humbles, inspires, and teaches people. Try one of the ministries on your own and then with others.” Jesus goal for us is to have ordinary people go out and share with other ordinary people, but all are called to do something special in the world in his name.
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