All posts in Summer of Service

For the past 6 years on summer Wednesday nites we have looked for ways to touch people in our community – we call it "Summer of Service". Every church in Lumberton knows that they should be involved serving the community but knowing and doing are 2 different things. 

It is very easy to find ourselves talking a lot about reaching out those who are outside the walls of our churches - summer of service is our corporate "action-point", it's the place where hyde park puts feet to our talk. This summer marks our 6th summer of serving Lumberton.

The odd thing about Summer of Service is that many hyde park people have thought in the past that they weren't qualified to do the projects we were participating in, so let me make this clear: ANYBODY CAN BE PART OF THE PROJECTS WE WILL DO – NO EXPERIENCE IS NECESSARY. Each week we will tackle a new and different project (not to mention easy, anybody can do these projects) that puts us out among our friends in Lumberton.

Tonite's project will be what I call "Community Drink Share". We will meet on campus at 6:30pm and will leave to go to a busy intersection to pass out drinks, invites and tracts. This project is definitely one of my favorites as it allows us to touch the greatest number of people in the shortest period of time (which I believe is the goal of this kind of outreach). 

Come on out – pass a can and watch God change a life. 

Last nite we had the best time as we had the opportunity to touch over 300 people in about an hours time. If you've been around hyde park for long you know that it's our mission to "Love God, Love People and Serve our World" – if you've been wondering, that's what "Summer of Service" is all about, a practical way of living that our and putting it into action.

Every church in Lumberton knows that they should be involved serving our community. Knowing and doing, however, are 2 different things. We find ourselves talking a lot about reaching out those who are outside the walls of hyde park – summer of service is our corporate "action-point", it's the place where hyde park puts feet to our talk. This summer marks our 5th summer of serving Lumberton.

Thank God that I am a part of a church that loves people – real people with real problems, challenges and situations. I have witnessed this church welcome people and show them love that was a pure demonstration of the power of Christ. Really.

hyde park is not afraid to get outside the walls of our church (Rumba on the Lumba, 4th of July celebration, etc.) but we have an opportunity to "take it up a notch."

Next Wednesday, June 13th, marks the beginning of our 4th Hyde Park Summer of Service. The "Summer of Service" is ministry that we do on Weds. nights all summer – rather than talk about JESUS we want to be His hands and feet to a lost world. Opportunities available are:

• Ministering to families in need – we will begin with the Thompson family who was referred by one of our members. We will descend on their home next Weds to do work around the outside of their home (yard work and more).
• Church and Community Center – CCC has been given new space at the old Lumberton Ford and needs our help to get that up and going. Opportunities there varies from: folding and organizing clothing, organizing food items, building walls for offices, and determining usefulness of donations.
• Yard Work - we literally ride around town looking for homes in need of help, walk up, knock on the door and ask if we may do their yards – we have literally led people to Christ as they sat on the front steps watching our people work
• Soft Drink give-a-ways: we sometimes go to busy street corners and give out drinks and a connect card in the name of JESUS.
• Winshield Ministry: going to gas stations and wash windshields while people are filling up their cars with gas. We’ve gone as far as to buy-down gas…

So, whatcha waiting for? Our BFG’s (Bible Fellowship Groups) are teaming up to do this work and you can be a part of it too. Interested? Let me know here what you wanna do.