5/2/10

Last Sunday was one of my favorite days of "church" ever! And I'm a church girl... so that's saying something.

Several years ago I heard a podcast from Menlo Park Pres. where John Ortberg was sharing something their church had done. They "did" church by serving in the community rather than huddling. LOVED this idea and have wanted to do it at my church ever since.

Our Senior Pastor and Outreach Ministry team came up with "the Church has Left the Building" idea and 5/2/10 was our date! The basic idea was come to church for a shortened service and then head out in to the community to serve for 3-4 hours.
There were 35 projects ranging from landscaping, transient camp clean up, school clean ups to nursing home services etc. At last count I think over 1500 of Sunset's people left the building to serve that day.

Our family signed up to serve at JOIN. I chose JOIN because it's not in Beaverton, because of the team leader, Charlie Theuma, who I've heard of, but not gotten to serve with before and because I believe in their mission. Transitioning the homeless in to stable housing.

Originally I was kind of bummed because it would just be Mike, Molly and I and Abby would be serving with the high school students somewhere else in town, but on Sunday I found out that the students were also coming to JOIN to serve!
In addition to getting out of the building and the work we accomplished together in our community, one of the best parts of 5/2/10 for me was watching people use their gifts in community. Leadership, helps, service, administration, hospitality... it was a sweet sweet day and I can't wait to do more of these!