How do we 'do' service & missions in our new ministry plan.
One of our goals as we build a new culture in our new congregation is to simplify our church life. In the past, we have had a bunch of different mission projects going on without any focus to what we were doing or accountability for accomplishing any goals, and everything had a committee meeting!
The books Toxic Charity and Helping Without Hurting, as well as information from Rev. Owen Ross of the North Texas Conference were really helpful for us to collect our thoughts and organize our action. We wanted our service ministry to fit with our mission statement of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. So we needed to be making disciples and we needed to see transformation. Some of our projects had lasted for decades, and we couldn't name a single disciple that we had made. We wanted to build relational projects instead of transactional projects, so we needed to find partners to work with instead of places for us to give hand-outs.
We have four areas where we live out our spiritual practice of service.
Individual :: God-Given Passions
Serving others is one of our five spiritual practices, and we encourage every participant at our church to find their God-given passion and serve in that area. Our people can be deployed all over town and beyond without needing committee meetings or approvals from anyone. As they serve in the place with the people they feel a passion for, they also get to meet new people. When they meet new people, they can share their own faith story and invite them to church. We have a list posted in our hall that shows all our people serving in our community and where they are serving. We are helping our disciples grow in their spiritual maturity through service.
Church :: Just One Mission
But what about hungry and homeless people?
The world is full of people with needs. Our community is full of people with many needs. As a church with a core leadership of five and active volunteers of about 15-20 people, we just can't do very much. So we picked one issue to focus on as a church: clean water. This simplifies our meetings and organization needs and deploys our people into the community where they feel passionate about serving people.
Since our name is Bridges, and we are seven blocks from the Mississippi River, clean water was a natural choice for our service focus. We are encouraging people to use less plastic to help the oceans and people who live along its shores. We will send a team to the Great River Clean-Up Day in May to help collect trash along the Mississippi, and we have selected a Methodist mission partnership through the General Board of Global Missions where we help get wells built in villages in Laos.
We can expand the resources we have by partnering with existing groups so we all get more done. We build relationships and meet more people and we can share our faith.
Invitation :: Give Back Events
As part of our efforts to meet new people and share our faith stories, we want to be in the community serving others and inviting new people to serve. We try to schedule a Give Back Event most months as an outreach tool as well as a service event so we meet new people and have an opportunity to invite new people to work along-side us.
Give Back Events are a few hours, usually on a Saturday, where we can help existing organizations with their projects. No organization or resources are needed from us except scheduling, communication and muscles. For example, we have helped the Parks & Rec department with their Family Fun Day, Pine Lake Camp with fall clean-up, and St. Clare's Medical Mission with basement organization.
Change :: And Justice For ...
Serving others is partly about mercy projects where we meet people's needs. But we also need justice action to change systems to eliminate needs. We took a trip to Washington DC and learned about immigration issues at the Board of Church & Society on Capitol Hill. Otherwise, we are still working on this... Stay posted to see what we develop over time.