We’ve been talking for several months about the possibility of becoming a host church for the Family Promise ministries. This is the ministry that provides food and housing for homeless families in our local area by housing them in churches on a one-week rotating basis.
We recently learned that Family Promise of Clear Creek (link) has an immediate need that will allow us to do a simple trial run of being a host church. The host church that was supposed to house the families during the week of December 16th has had to back out, and Family Promise asked to house the families in our church that week. The elders discussed the possibility and agreed, seeing this as a great opportunity to get our feet wet in the ministry without the full manpower commitment.
Here’s the way it will work: the other churches in the local network will provide the food, manpower and activities – we’ll provide the space! It’s a great week to do so, because most of the activities of the church will have ended for Christmas. In fact the only major activities are two that the Family Promise families can participate in: (1) at the very beginning of the week, just after they arrive, we’ll be Christmas Caroling – and we’ll invite them to come along if they want; (2) at the very end of the week, just before they leave, we’ll have our Family Christmas breakfast – and we’ll provide breakfast for them as well.
There are currently four families in the program – four moms and six children.
Here are some PDF documents that will help you understand the ministry we’re considering.
First, here’s a description of the typical ministry week:
Here’s a description of ‘What is Needed for a Congregation to Host?’
Next, here’s a map of our facility, showing how the Sunday School building will be used to house the families.
Finally, here’s a proposed staffing chart:
During the trial run, from December 16th to December 23rd, we would love to have some interested people observe how the ministry looks in real life. We’d also love to provide at least a little of the actual manpower or food, but we have to figure out how to coordinate that with Family Promise.
This Sunday, November 25th, during our Pizza lunch we will review both the trial run and more general thinking about becoming a host church. We hope you will prayerfully consider being an observer at some point during the trial run, and committing to a role if we take on full host church responsibilities down the road.
