Easter is one of the most significant moments each year in the life of our church. It’s more than a holiday on a calendar.  It's a moment in history when everything changed.  And it’s not just a celebration.  It’s an opportunity. Every year, people who don’t normally attend church walk through our doors open to something more.  It’s the friend in our life who is struggling in a broken marriage.  The family member who just received that dire diagnosis.  Or the co-worker who is stuck in a purposeless existence.  These are the people that God desires to draw to himself…and there’s no more strategic time than Easter to lean into what God desires to do.

Every person carries questions they can’t quite shake.  They may not always say them out loud, but they’re there—sometimes in quiet moments, sometimes in seasons of crisis,  sometimes in the middle of success that somehow still feels empty.

If Proverbs is right (and it is) then our words carry enormous power. They can build life or break it (see the full sermon from Proverbs 15:1-4 in case you missed it). They can steady a soul or scar it (Proverbs 12:18).  They can shape identity for decades. And one of the most overlooked ways we build life is through encouragement. God has given us the incredible community of His Bride (the local church).  And it’s in and through this community that we have an incredible opportunity to practice the life-giving exhortation to encourage one another (see 1 Thessalonians 5:11).

Wisdom in the book of Proverbs consistently points us toward open hands rather than clenched fists. “One gives freely, yet grows all the richer… one who waters will himself be watered” (Proverbs 11:24–25). As we journey through Proverbs together, we are learning that generosity is not first about money it’s about trust. Trust that God is our provider, trust that his kingdom is worth investing in, and trust that blessing flows through faithful obedience. Setting a generosity goal for 2026 is not about arriving at a perfect number, but about choosing the wise path of giving rather than guarding, worship rather than worry, and actively participating in what God is doing.