Share the JOY…
This Christmas we're starting a new Heise Hill tradition with the launch of Share the Joy. As a church family we are going to partner with MCC by purchasing gifts from their Christmas Simple Giving catalogue. We will be purchasing gifts from their Relief and Livestock categories. In the Relief section we’ll be purchasing a relief home in Indonesia. In the Livestock section we will be purchasing goats. As active members in the Community Church Care group that serves in our local KIN Village we will also be providing a Christmas hamper for a KIN Village family. You can help make a difference by sharing the joy of Jesus Christ. A member of our Compassion and Missions team will be selling Share the Joy hearts in the foyer each advent Sunday.
Hopefully it’s clear to anyone who spends any time with our church community that we’re committed to being much more than just a group of people who gather together on a Sunday morning. Yes, we want to learn together and be moving forward in our relationship with God; however, if we’re not actually putting Jesus’ teachings into action we’re really missing the point.
We want to intentionally reach out to those around us and serve compassionately in various ways. We want to care for those in our church community, and we also want to extend our support to help meet the needs in our local and global community, be they physical, financial, emotional, or spiritual needs.
We’ve partnered with Urban Promise Toronto as our main local compassion partner to be intentional about serving them in practical ways in addition to financial support. For example at the end of each summer we host an End of Summer Celebration day for their summer camp programs with four bus loads of kids and their leaders at a local park, and then in October Heise Hill Runs for Urban Promise in the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon instead of holding services on that Sunday.
On a global level we’ve partnered with the Canadian Cuban Project Team to support the Cuban Church to provide them with practical and financial help. We've gone on working and learning mission trips to Cuba. We've also supported the Cuban BIC Church there by helping them purchase church property.
We also are supporters of MCC (Mennonite Central Committee), a worldwide ministry of Anabaptist churches, that shares God's love and compassion for all in the name of Christ by responding to basic human needs and working for peace and justice.
Our church community is also a supporter of our own denomination’s SPICE program (Scholarship Program for International Children’s Education).
We're committed to supporting our local food bank partner with our weekly food collection Help Fill the Box - Heise Hill Cares.
The bottom line is that we want to do much more than just believe that we should care for others. We want to put that belief into action.