"with" the neighborhood

There are three kinds of churches.  Churches "in" the neighborhood (fortress), churches "to" the neighborhood (savior), and churches "with" the neighborhood (partner).  UCI operates as church with their neighborhood.  It has a parish, neighborhood kind of mentality.  As they worship, disciple, and equip believers through the church, they are also looking right around them in their neighborhood, listening to the community, joining community meetings, discovering the needs of the people, and actively working with the neighborhood as the body of Christ to bring the wholistic Good News of Christ.

Here are some examples of wholistic mission in the area surrounding the church-

*A UCI leader took Lisa C., one of our team members who is a physical therapist, out into the neighborhood to visit neighbors who were crippled and disabled.  Kristie also brought a few neighbors to UCI so that Lisa could work with them to show them exercises and make recommendations to improve their mobility.  

*UCI has a large soccer field, a small soccer field, a gazebo, and a volleyball court for the college students and for people of the neighborhood.  As I played volleyball last Sunday, I looked around at all the action around me...kids playing soccer, other children chanting and singing from the gazebo, people watching and cheering and visiting.  It was a hub of lively recreation for the neighborhood.  

*A nutrition center on the UCI campus feeds dozens of neighborhood children four times a week.  

*UCI built a Christian primary school that has over 150 children from the community attending.  

*Kristie scheduled a time for the local residents to lay out their wares on the soccer field so that our team might buy some Haitian souveniers from them.

*UCI has provided concrete floors for neighbors, a well, an irrigation pump, and has begun agricultural and animal breeding programs to stimulate food production and economic development in their community.  

These are just some of the ways God is working through the Church as she joins "with" the neighborhood to care and share, and to strengthen and stimulate growth.  And as I have mentioned in previous posts, all of this flows from Christ...proclaiming that He alone can restore hearts, lives, and neighborhoods to bring about shalom.