This year’s Spring to Life Gala was truly a night to remember. We are so excited to be able to give such a wonderful report of our Spring to Life Gala! We had over 700 guests attend the Gala and were blessed to have such an incredible response from our sponsors and guests, and raised over $187,500 in sponsorships, gifts, pledges! Thank you so much for your support!
Our time together at the Gala included a report about the mission of the Center and the impact we are having in our community from Luci, our executive director, as well as heartfelt testimonies from three of our special clients, and the much-anticipated highlight of the evening – the keynote address by Dr. Ravi Zacharias.
Dr. Zacharias’ talk encouraged us believers to think, and to teach our children to think by encouraging them to read. In Matthew 22, Jesus tells us that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord with all of our heart and all of our soul and all of our mind. Indeed, if we are to engage the massive issues and attacks of today and tomorrow, we must begin with right thinking. As Ravi once said, “Right thinking is the key to right expression.”
Additionally, Ravi helped us to understand that it is only within the Christian worldview that the idea of intrinsic human rights for all people can be grounded. Within the naturalistic worldview where survival of the fittest is the supreme ethic, the stronger are more valuable than the weak. Hinduism has made a religion out of the caste system. Buddhism claims that there is no individual identity and, therefore, no individual rights. And in Islam, non-Muslims have fewer rights than Muslims, women have fewer rights than men, and those who leave the faith have none at all. Humanists can try to ascribe equal human rights to all, thus attempting to give us extrinsic value, but there is no logical foundation for this within their naturalistic worldview either.
It is only Christianity that gives us all intrinsic equal worth by virtue of being image-bearers of God.
Here at the Center, we affirm and defend intrinsic equal value in all human beings – including the yet-to-be-born. We exist to welcome those who are in need and meet them in the midst of their suffering with the love and truth of the gospel. But what is the most important thing we can do for those in our community who need us? Remember with me, if you will, how Ravi concluded his address at the Gala with a reference to F.W. Boreham’s essay “A Baby’s Funeral” with his exhortation for us to “Just be there for them . . . just be there for them in their need.”
We joyfully accept this challenge and this is exactly what we plan to continue doing as we bring both love and truth to the hurting world around us.
For those interested in reading more about Boreham’s essay, *A Baby’s Funeral”*, you can read more beginning on page six of RZIM’s Just Thinking magazine found here: http://rzim.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/JT-231.pdf
In closing, we wanted to say to each of you a heartfelt “Thank you”, for it is truly each one of you who make our work here possible.
Click here to watch the video of our client testimonies that was shown at the Gala.
To learn more about Ravi Zacharias and RZIM click here or you can check out their website at www.rzim.org
Thank you to our 2017 Spring to Life Gala Sponsors!
