Christmas offering total - South Bend City Church

Last week in gatherings, we gave an update on our Christmas 2019 offering goal of $95,000. At that point, we had raised a total of about $78,000. Since Sunday, you have generously donated additional funds toward our Christmas offering, bringing our new total to about $102,600!

We are thrilled to be able to fully fund our original objectives with these funds.

To resource our community:

Purchase and install a lift to make our second floor spaces accessible for everyone. These spaces serve kids’ ministry, volunteers, student tables, meetings, special events, and expanded seating capacity for our gatherings.
Repair and add furnishings to make our space in Building 112 more functional and hospitable.
Supplement our general fund. We grew as a community in 2019, but our overall giving didn’t grow, which meant stretching resources to meet more needs. This supplement will help us cover expenses associated with our growth (like the kids’ ministry space we added this year and more coffee for gatherings) and other increasing needs (like rising healthcare costs for staff).

To resource our city:

Support the expansion of restorative justice circles in South Bend Community Schools. These efforts aim to displace exclusionary discipline practices with a more relational approach to conflict and problematic behavior. You can learn more about these circles here: https://sbadamsthetower.com/3442/news/restorative-justice-cutting-down-on-exculsionary-discipline/

To resource our world:

Fund a partnership with the Telos Group, an organization that helps form and equip communities of peacemakers to heal intractable conflict. It’s our goal for peacemaking pilgrimages to Israel/Palestine, Northern Ireland, the American South, and even here in South Bend to become part of our global strategy. You can learn more about the vision of the Telos Group here: http://www.telosgroup.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Peacemaking-as-Discipleship.pdf
Continue our support for World Vision’s efforts in caring for refugees in crisis:
https://www.worldvision.org/our-work/refugees-fragile-states

Guided prayer – Stages of faith

This week in gatherings, we talked about what our faith might look like in different phases. How do we continue moving forward as our faith grows? How do we keep going when the things that brought us this far can’t take us further?

If you missed this week, you can catch up via the podcast. Here are some questions we asked and processed during our gatherings that we hope you find helpful:
Movement 1: What are some beliefs or experiences that marked the start of your spiritual journey?

Who are some people that impacted your journey at the time?

What were some of the emotions, positive or negative?

Movement 2: What did your faith look like as you grew and matured?

What are some beliefs that were really important to you back then?

What are some beliefs that have changed since then?

Movement 3: Was your faith ever challenged or broken?

What questions were you asking God, or about God?

Did your faith eventually go back to the way things were or are things forever different on this side?

Movement 4: What are some things we can learn from the people who have helped us along our spiritual journey?

Are there any habits or practices or postures that would be good for us to try?

What are some ways we help others on their journey?