Serve United
Serve Sacramento is now Serve United
Serving the Fatherless in our Community
The best outcome for a child is to know the love of a permanent and strong family. Unfortunately, many children in our region do not experience the security and love of a stable family due to many factors including poverty, addiction, life stressors and lack of family support that cause parents to be unable to properly care for their children, fueling the foster care system. How can the church or individual respond to fatherless and vulnerable children in our community? This Sunday marks an annual observance of Orphan Sunday, a day where churches all over the nation and world celebrate the Christian teaching that we are adopted as sons and daughters of God and can engage in service towards the orphan in big and small ways. Beginning in a small village church in Zambia, Orphan Sunday is a day we turn our hearts towards vulnerable children in our communities.
Serve United would like to encourage you to do three things this Sunday and in the month of November:
1. PRAY for the plight of fatherless and vulnerable children both in our region and worldwide in your own prayers and with the people you gather with on Sunday. Pray about how God may want you to respond. Click HERE for a prayer guide.
2. CELEBRATE your adoption as sons and daughters of our Father God and explore God's heart of adoption in your personal and corporate time with God. If this is a new concept to you, click HERE and do a search of the word "adoption" in the search box to learn about this biblical teaching.
3. ENGAGE with non profits and ministries that are working with vulnerable children and youth in our region. Check out the Family Cause Page of our website to see a few of these organizations, or attend the Adoption & Foster Care Resource Fair in Folsom this Sunday.
Biblical faith clearly calls followers of Christ to respond to the vulnerable and fatherless in our communities (James 1:27). Let us joyfully take steps towards putting this into action.
Serving with you,
Megan McCleary
Serve United Director
The ACTS Group
Every School Partnership Update: The ABC's of School Partnership
Upcoming Service Opportunity: Winter Sanctuary
Winter Sanctuary is a seasonal rotating homeless shelter for up to 100 adults during the cold months of each year coordinated by Sacramento Steps Forward and local faith communities. Guests of the Winter Sanctuary program are hosted each evening by various faith communities throughout the Sacramento region. Congregations are asked to provide a meal, space in their buildings to host guests for the night and a simple breakfast in the morning. The guests are transported to each congregation facility on a rotating basis. Small congregations can also work with congregations who have facility capacity to host by providing meals. Sacramento Steps Forward is also looking for 2 volunteers each day at the intake site near Loaves & Fishes from 1:30-5pm each day to set the coffee to going, put out games, offer clothing from our new clothes closet, etc. The open dates to become a host congregation are Nov. 28th, Dec. 7th, Dec. 21st, Dec. 25th and Dec. 26th as well as plenty of dates in January, February and March.
If your congregation is interested in finding out more about the Winter Sanctuary Program, please contact Tiffany at tmgoeman@sacstepsforward.org
Participating Organization Spotlight: Reading Partners
If you are interested in becoming a reading partner volunteer or if you would like to connect your congregation to serve in one of the eight schools that Reading Partners work in, please contact Rachael Valler at rachael.valler@readingpartners.org