Tend My Sheep

2014 Loving Service Challenge

Jesus said, "Tend my sheep.” In the spirit of discipleship, the Deacons of our Diocese challenge you to engage with your parish, friends, and families in going outside the doors of our church to extend the love of Christ in your communities. At our Diocesan convention in 2012, we explored the Five Marks of Mission. We examined how are parishes are meeting each of the Five Marks and explored ways we could futher our efforts in each of the five areas. In 2014, we would like focus our attention on the third mark - Loving Service - through a challenge to the diocese to do more to "Tend My Sheep.” This "Tend My Sheep: 2014 Loving Service Challenge” is designed to inspire, support, document and report acts of outreach and loving service to our neighbors.

Together during the upcoming church year, we hope to collectively record one half million hours of person-to-person loving service to our neighbors. Although this number sounds astounding, it will only require that each of our 10,000 church members in the Diocese give one hour per week for 50 weeks.

As Christians, we know that we live in a world that can benefit enormously from even the simplest acts of love and charity toward our neighbors. Each of those simple acts create ripples of repeated acts by those who are inspired by them. We have been challenged by Jesus himself to love our neighbors as we love God, and to translate that love into action through personal service to our fellow humans on the planet.

Hours of service will be recorded online, using the following link: www.surveymonkey.com/s/TendMySheep. As you will see when you click on it, it’s easy to do. This link will be on the Diocesan web site and may be copied and distributed to everyone participating in the program.

We would like each parish to designate a contact person for the Loving Service Challenge to serve as sponsor and, for those without access to a computer, collect and record service hours. We will regularly report to the Diocese and all parishes our collective hours and provide a way for each parish to see its hours. These hours will also be recorded on this page for you to see throughout the year. One of our deacons will make contact periodically to ask about progress and concerns, and to offer help with ways to encourage participation. Our hope is not only to inspire action and to cause ripples, but to give us invaluable information at the parish, deanery and diocesan levels that will lead to ministry formation and support.

At next year’s convention, the total hours will be announced, and together we will celebrate Christ’s love in action.