As an individual or a family member, you and I have 2 weeks until Thanksgiving and 6 weeks until Christmas to design and implement a GIVING plan for either or both holidays. Very often churches, offices, and or communities offer a myriad of ways to get involved--from shopping and packaging a dinner for a needy family to visiting a family with wrapped gifts. Now is the time to check into the possibilities that will work best with your family dinner, travels, and commitments.
Why now? Because if you wait (and procrastinate) until the last minute, you might not have the money or time or energy to engage in the ministry to those in need.
Make a phone call, visit the church website, or call a local homeless or food shelter and ask about "shifts" for serving meals, etc. over the upcoming holiday weekends. Then report on the blog what you and/or your family has decided to do.
***Note: posting comments requires a little persistence. Please hit "enter" or "post comment" twice. It ALMOST ALWAYS rejects your first post for no reason. And it ALMOST ALWAYS accepts your second post of no reason!
***Plus: I'm hoping to use the DIMDIM webinar feature for the first 20 who can join me on the call who have a camera/computer on their desktop or laptop. You'll be able to see and hear me, but you cannot be heard. If I can arrange it as I did last time, your "link" will appear on our/this blog with instructions on how to sign up and enter the call at noon PST.
Be encouraged,
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I am SO excited about our family's service plan this year - I have been "wanting" to do something for a number of years and truthfully, hadn't really tried hard enough to find the right thing...but this year, perhaps because my heart was in the right place, God dropped it into my lap. With a team of people, we are helping to organize and pull together donations of prepared food to support a Thanksgiving meal for 300 people in the Sun Valley community, an urban Denver neighborhood that is one of the highest poverty and crime areas in the state, on Saturday, November 21 starting at 3:00 PM. There is a pastor there, Age Sandoval and his team from Tha Myx, who have an outreach ministry there that we are supporting.
ReplyDeleteIn the midst of the planning and working - God has abundantly blessed us with an outpouring of support. In addition, because I have been praying for this every day, I already love these people...and can't wait to see them on that day and to see what God is going to do. Lastly, it has given me an opportunity to witness a bit as friends from the neighborhood who I've invited to help ask "what made you do this?" or "how did you get involved with this?".
Perfect. This is exactly what I had hoped would occur for all of us--the idea, the prayer, and the implementation that impacted far beyond our own family. Woo hoo, Stace...
ReplyDeleteIn my new church, we brought in food items for thanksgiving baskets. But one thing I would have liked to see, was being able to meet the people they were going to.
ReplyDeleteWhether just drawing a name of a person, and being able to send them a specific gift or card or prayer, or whatever it seems the personal touch is a bit missing. I'm wondering out loud here and by no means am any good at doing any of this myself, but why is it we can have church luncheons and have small group pot lucks but we dont move outside that box and put names and faces on the people we're sending the gift/food boxes to? It's not always possible, but sometimes it is. I'm going to try to watch for divine appointments, where I can actually put a face to someone and be praying or giving to them.
Execute your service plan
ReplyDeleteLast year I had a party for my work and for my friends. I asked the guests to bring money instead of a gift. We put it together and gave it to two different charities. I was a hit. I was thinking of doing that again. This year our H/S leaders have challenged the teachers to encourage our high school disciple group to come up with a charity to give to. My group made boxes for the Franklin Graham gift program. I want to do something with my granddaughter but have not come up with the event yet.
Diane