SERVING OUR COMMUNITY
COMMUNITY SERVICE
Christians have always been at the forefront of serving our communities at times of crisis. Many of our regular ministries cannot run at the moment but we can be good neighbours in so many ways.
We are organising our service around three areas which are basic to life:
PRAYER: Praying for our community and the wider world. See Worship & Prayer page for details of how to join in.
FOOD: Through our Make Lunch project delivering food bags to families and through our support of Rugby Food Bank. We are linked with the local council who are putting vulnerable people who can’t go shopping our way. If you are well and can help with that, please contact Anna Naish here to volunteer.
WATER: Through supporting a Christian Aid Project supplying safe water and hygiene kits to families in the developing world so that they can wash their hands safely. See below.
OPERATION CHRISTMAS CHILD
Operation Christmas Child
We will be taking part in Operation Christmas Child AGAIN this year; providing shoeboxes full of gifts for some of the poorest children in the world.
You can take part in one of two ways:
- Pack your own shoebox with gifts. See HERE for how to pack a shoebox: Please return your shoebox by Sunday November 1st.
- Purchase some items to go into the shoeboxes. See HERE for items to purchase for a shoebox: Please bring what you have purchased and put into the plastic bins in the church foyer by Sunday October 25th.
If you are packing your own shoebox as a family, there is a sheet that children can send with their shoebox. On the sheet are some things that a child can share about themselves with the child who will receive their shoebox. You can download it HERE.
Make Lunch normally provides meals for families ‘to fill the holiday hunger gap’. Since Easter, we have switched to regularly delivered bags with food, recipes and activities to dozens of families From Make Lunch and Messy Church. Volunteers have checked in with all those families regularly and supported some of them with food bags when needed.
Below are some thank you cards sent by familes who have received food bags from our Make Lunch project over recent weeks.
UNIFORMED ORGANISATIONS
Rainbows, Brownies, Guides and Rangers
Beavers, Cubs, Scouts
Are all suspended at the moment.
But 8th Rugby Brownies latest project is this NHS montage. Thank you, girls!
Many of our community ministries are run in conjunction with other churches in Rugby through a church network called Revive. Projects include:
- Hope4 Nightshelter and day centre for the homeless. (meets in St Matthew & St Oswald’s on Thursday nights, Nov-March)
- Rugby Foodbank
- Street Pastors
- CAP Christians against Poverty