Serve

Faith in Action

In November of 2007, GSLC initiated the first of yearly “Faith In Action” Sunday Mornings. On one dedicated Sunday, hundreds of our members participated in service projects to serve local and global needs. These included assembling Aids Caregiver Kits for those served by World Vision in Africa and Asia. “Meals of Faith” were served at Human Options, the Salvation Army homeless shelter in Santa Ana and the Isaiah House in Santa Ana. Since then, look how we have grown!

Faith-in-Act!on5 Recap

Happy Anniversary Faith-in-Action! Good Shepherd’s fifth annual Faith-in-Action Sunday on November 13, 2011 was marked by a prayerful spirit as compassionate servants worked side by side to be Jesus’ hands and feet to our community and to the world.

We thank the Holy Spirit for working among us during our morning worship and inclining our hearts toward service to others! We heard Jesus encourage his followers to trust that God was looking out from them so they, in turn, could care for others. Read the text again from Luke 12:

32 “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.
34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (see Luke 12:22-34)

Faith-in-Action reminds us to care for the poor locally and globally, showing ourselves to be Jesus’ disciples.

What kind of impact are we having through Faith-in-Action?
One way to answer that question is by looking at the numbers.
This year we estimated that over 430 (Adults, Teens and Kids) were involved and gave an estimated 800 volunteer hours on behalf of those in need in our community and world. Some members even participated in multiple projects.

Here is a brief recap of what was accomplished during our 5th Annual FIA Sunday:

Some of our projects benefited our local community.

We assembled 1000 homeless kits that help provide some of the tangible needs of our communities homeless and allow them to hear the gospel – each kit has a booklet called, “Jesus Had No Home.” We will be taking some of these kits to our Wednesday night street ministry in Santa Ana, and encouraging members to distribute these kits to people they meet.
We had groups going to serve meals at Human Options Woman’s Shelter, at Isaiah House Homeless Shelter, at Salvation Army’s Hospitality House, and at a Teen Shelter in Laguna Beach. Our Teen Shelter was a new project
Members of our church baked cookies for the day, and another group packaged the 1300 homemade cookies to take to those shelter programs, and for our FIA volunteers.
Another group prepared our Shepherd’s Tree Ornaments that will help us provide Christmas gifts for many of the organizations our church supports, as well as Good Shepherd families.
About 30 people from our Jr. and Sr. High Youth Ministries blessed our volunteers with a BBQ lunch and fellowship time after our projects!
A team went to Families Forward in Irvine to sort food in time for the Thanksgiving food distribution.
Another team went to Franklin Elementary School to scrub down and polish the 100+ wooden auditorium chairs to bless that school’s community in Santa Ana. The school was built in 1903, and the last renovation was in 1936 – so this was a much needed service project.

Some of our projects benefited our global community.

We assembled 350 World Vision AIDS Caregiver kits, and wrote words of encouragement for the care-givers. These kits allow those who are caring for people with AIDS in Africa to provide them with compassionate health care.
We assembled 100 Operation Christmas Child boxes so that children will be able to have something to open at Christmas and hear the gospel message through the ministry of Samaritan’s Purse.
Another group helped to stuff “Comfort Critter Turtles” to go in the Operation Christmas Child boxes.
One team cut fabric and sewed the edges on numerous Sand Scarves for our soldiers serving overseas. Another team put children’s vitamins into packets to distribute in Haiti during our medical mission trip in January 2012. This is a blessing for children whose diet is mainly rice and beans.

Special thanks to all the leaders of these activities. We could not have done it without you!
We have a few other people to thank: Our “Faith-Patrol Team” who helped to sign people up for events on FIA Sunday, and a fantastic Saturday Prep Crew of volunteers who helped set for all of our events.
Special thanks to our musicians, and music leaders Doug Fischer and Cy Lewis for leading us in worship to prepare our hearts to serve.
We especially thank, Josh Lyon, our Director of Technology, Dan O’Toole for capturing our FIA events and putting together our Faith-in-Action 2011 celebration video. You can see it on our church website at: http://gslcirvine.org/media/video/faith-in-action-5/
Special thanks to our Faith-in-Action Leadership Team, Terry Fee, David Dupre, Cary Spohr, Melanie Munson, Shirley Leith and Cheryl Hall. Without the dedication of these leaders this day would not have been possible. This was truly a team effort.

Special thanks to all who gave financially! We received $10,859 in donations from members – exceeding our goal of $10,000! Those donations, along with $1600 from Thrivent Financial for Lutherans helped make Faith-in-Action possible. Thank you so much!

We will look forward to our 6th annual Faith-in-Action next fall! Until then, we hope that you’ll join us in putting our Faith-in-Action every week! Our on-going hope is that Faith-in-Action Sunday would be a catalyst for all our Outreach projects that we do year round – we hope that you’ll join us. On the first Sunday of each month our Outreach Flyer is in the church bulletin which lists the many ways you can help serve!
I’m proud that our congregation put their faith into action on behalf of our community and world!

Let’s Keep Putting our Faith-in-Action,
Pastor Ryan Warne-McGraw