Our Ministry of Outreach

To define the Outreach Ministry Team, we focus on ministries that care for others outside of our congregation.  As Christians, we are to have a heart to reach out and be an example, like Jesus Christ, to share ourselves to others through service, peace, justice, love, compassion, and mercy.

Recent reflections from the Outreach Ministry Team:

Thanks to everyone who helped make this year’s Christmas Day Dinner one of the best yet in terms of numbers of guests and ease of orchestration!  We served more than 200 people that day, and Lori  Thomas has mentioned how blessed she was by our church family’s donations of food items, help with setup and cleanup, and assistance in the kitchen.  Thanks, too, to those of you who lifted up the dinner in prayer.  You prayed and God answered!

Please stay after the service today for a meal in the fellowship center.  The Outreach Team will be serving several types of pasta with a smorgasbord of sauce selections!  Following the meal will be a brief, interactive program that will serve as the official kickoff to our Spotlight on Justice emphasis.  This month’s justice topic is racial reconciliation, an issue we find particularly timely in light of the recent harassment of students of color along Beall Avenue.  We hope you’ll come away from the program with fresh understandings of the racism that persists in our culture and community and what our response might be as followers of Christ.

Looking ahead to the spring, there’s an opportunity to show some support to a couple of our young adults doing vocational ministry in the Pacific Northwest!  A group will be traveling to Seattle May 12-18 to learn from and serve alongside the ministries that Evan Miller and Teresa Hershberger are involved with.  We hope you’ll join us! 

Evan’s organization, Sacred Heart Shelter, provides temporary housing to single women and homeless families until they can get back on their feet.   Evan and other case workers help the residents develop goals, obtain medical care, and provide training and child care until stable, permanent housing can be found.  According to Evan, there is never a shortage of hands-on projects at the shelter, from painting to maintenance to deep cleaning – even some outdoor work.  Our group will likely also cook a meal for the residents.

Later in the week we will head a few miles south to Tacoma, where Teresa Hershberger works at the L’Arche Tahoma Hope Community, a residential community striving to “make known the gifts of people with developmental disabilities revealed through mutually transforming relationships.”  Our group will spend a couple of days living in the homes of some of the residents and their staff, getting a firsthand taste of this philosophy at work.  Teresa is eager to debrief our experience with us, helping us explore how we as a church family might be more intentional in including our own members with disabilities in a mutually transforming way.

While in the Pacific Northwest, we will also worship with an urban Mennonite congregation and have some time to see the city.  The costs of the trip will be covered by those going, but there will be some fundraising events this spring planned by Outreach.  If you are interested in learning more, please stay for a brief informational meeting after the service on Sunday, Jan. 22.

                                                                                            ~ Jon Longacre        

 For more information about the Outreach Ministry Team please contact the .