This year, my family will again be participating in Serve Day. It’s the coolest idea, and I wanted to tell you a little more about it. It was started about seven
years ago as a means of mobilizing Christians into community service through their local churches. From the SD brochure:
Serve Day is an annual event empowering local churches in serving their community in ways that clearly demonstrate the power of God’s love through acts of kindness and meeting real needs. Each year, churches in different regions join together to plan and implement projects that serve non-profits and neighborhoods in practical ways.
Currently, Serve Day operates in Orange County and the Inland Empire. (And you thought us SoCal folks were too smug to care!) The projects range from working with the local homeless shelter, to convalescent home visitations, to cleaning a boys home. And there’s lots more to choose from. My daughter-in-law Krystal is overseeing Good Clean Fun, where we will be cleaning and reorganizing the local food bank.
But my favorite is the Blood Drive. In exchange for your pint of blood, the local blood bank will donate $20 to Signs of Love to assist with their educational and language development work among the deaf in Honduras. It’s a two-for-one deal. Plus, I can lay down and make a difference!
Anyway, if your church is looking for ways to springboard into helping and serving in your community, you should check into Serve Day.
Though you might like to know, Mike, my church does something we call The Church Has Left the Building—much like you’ve described, but in the Fullerton/Brea area (it’s this weekend).
Then a group of churches in my town worked together last year in the kind of coop you described, maybe a month later. They may have done it before and I just saw it for the first time in the paper last year.
Anyway, my point is, this is an idea that’s spreading, and I’m glad.
Becky