Zion E-News (9-3-2020)
Over the past few weeks, I have been sharing some ideas and/or encouragement to intentionally share our faith in God. This week, I want to share a simple tool to help assess and encourage each of us to begin to think about our neighborhoods missionally.
Authors Jay Pathak and Dave Runyon have developed a simple “block map” to help you learn more about your neighbors. Sketch the image below on a piece of paper.
Imagine that the middle box in the image is your house and all the other houses are the 8 houses nearest to you — the households God has put closes to where you live.
Your neighborhood probably isn’t quite as neat and tidy as the picture, you may live in an apartment building, on a culture-de-sac, or out in the country, but make a chart of your nearest neighbors. The layout doesn’t matter near as much as thinking about your neighbors.
In the your home, write your address. In the other boxes, answer the three questions to the left.
A. Write the names of all the people who live in the house. If you can give first and last names, great, if you only know first names, that’s fine, too.
B. Write down some relevant personal information you might know from talking to them once or twice: what do they do, do they have any pets or hobbies and so on.
C. Write down some in-depth information you would know after connecting with them. This might include career plans or family dreams or anything to do with purpose in their life. Write down anything meaningful that you have learned after interacting with them.
How did you do gathering all that information? After leading this exercise with thousands of people, the authors have found:
- About 10% of people can fill out the names of all 8 neighbors in line A.
- About 3% can fill out line B for every home
- Less than 1% can fill out line C for every home
How might your impact for God in your neighborhood change if you started intentionally loving the neighbors right next door? What might you do this week to get to know one or two neighbors a little better and fill in some more lines on your chart?
– Greg
Connect to God
This Sunday we will gather for worship only online. We will be live streaming our 11 am service at zionreformed.online.church and Zion’s Facebook Page. We will also rebroadcast the service on WCET at noon on Friday and 4pm next Sunday.
This Sunday, we will be joining the Reformed Church in America for a denomination-wide worship event. Because we cannot all physically gather from across the US and Canada in one place, the event will be live streamed. We will participate in this event at 11 am at zionreformed.online.church. This is the exact same place you can watch our service every Sunday. We will also include the service on Facebook and intend to rebroadcast it on WCET later in the week. The message will be offered by the Rev. Dr. Eddy Aleman, the General Secretary of the RCA. He will be preaching on Psalm 46 and how we find our rest in the Lord. This will be a great opportunity to hear from Eddy and worship with brothers and sisters across the continent. Please join me next Sunday at 11. (There will be no outdoor service on the 6th due to this joint event.)
For those who have been receiving sermon notes via the mail, we do not have any sermon notes this week because of the joint service with the RCA. We will resume providing written copies of the sermon next week.
Grow in Community
We have recently started a closed Zion group on Facebook to create a place to discuss sermons, share prayer requests, and stay connected asynchronously when direct face-to-face connections are more challenging. If you want to join the group, you can request to join at this link: www.facebook.com/groups/ziongrandville/
Beginning on September 27, we will hold worship at 9 am indoors. This service will also be live-streamed. We also hope to begin holding Children’s Ministry for kids ages 3 through 5th grade during worship. We will not hold a large group gathering for children and will instead have them go immediately to their classrooms. They will be in 3 classrooms and we will practice social distancing by requiring masks for children in K-5th and attempting to keep unrelated children 6 feet apart. We intend to follow the recommendations in the MI Safe Start for Schools documentation. We hope to begin holding nursery closer to Christmas, but no firm date has yet been set.
If you are volunteering in Kid’s Ministry this year, we’re having a separate training for each class. It will include room specific children’s ministry training for teachers & helpers, new Covid guidelines, and our annual Keeping Kids Safe training, which is required for anyone 18 years old and older to be eligible to serve with children. We’re excited to open up our kid’s ministry later this month. Thank you for serving in these uncertain times! The training dates are as follows:
- Sunday, September 13th at 10:30am – Training for the K-2nd team in Room 205
- Sunday, September 20th at 10:30am – Training for the Preschool team in Room 206
- Sunday, September 20th at 4:00pm – Training for the 3rd-5th team in Room 207
Serve the World
If you would like to support our Personal Care Pantry, following items (full size – not travel size) are needed and can be dropped off on a Sunday morning or during the week Monday through Thursday:
Laundry Soap Bar Soap Dish Soap Disposable Razors
Shampoo Conditioner Toothpaste Paper Grocery Bags
Deodorant Tampons Maxi Pads Paper towels (1 or 2 pack) Toilet paper (1-4 pack)
Donations can be placed in the box in the lobby marked pantry donations.
Hope Eriks, through the Girl Scouts, was distributing personal care items to people through Dégagé Ministries. Through this week, she learned many homeless people in Grand Rapids are in need of warmer clothes as the summer ends. To help meet this need, we need your help. Do you have gently used sweatshirts or t-shirts you don’t need? If so, beginning Sunday, we will have two boxes in the lobby of church to accept your clothing donations.
If you need help, either with food, personal care items, help grocery shopping, or with financial needs, please contact Chip Harkes, our chair of deacons, and he can help connect you with the appropriate resources at Zion. His e-mail is chip@harkeslandscape.com and his phone number is 616-299-4804.
Administration
We continue to thank God for his provision of all of our needs and for the generous support of our congregation with their time, talent, and treasures. We are especially grateful this week for all those who have adjusted their means of giving to give online, through the mail, and via text.
Fiscal Year to Date Budget: $136,581.64
Fiscal Year to Date Contribution: $114,718.51
Giving Last Week: $5,383.34
Cash on Hand: $154,017.34
