Faith Community Commitment is Building
The faith community is stepping up to the plate in so many ways to build opportunity in Greater Saint Paul. Congregations clearly want to help build pathways out of poverty.
Two houses of worship are hosting Interfaith Action’s Project Home every month, with other faith communities assisting with volunteer support. Three faith organizations (a synagogue, church, and meeting house) are leading
the way on a holiday food drive for our Department of Indian Work. The Jewish community’s Cardozo Society is sending a steady stream of volunteer lawyers to the Power-Up Legal Clinic at Morning Star Baptist Church, and leaders in the Minnesota legal community are talking about replicating that clinic with lawyers of other faiths at other houses of worship.
And there is another new, heartening sign of the faith community’s passion for being part of the solution: the “yes” responses we’re getting as we ask churches, synagogues, and mosques to become “anchors” in our Opportunity Saint Paul (OSP) program. These “anchor houses of worship” do the following:
- Engage two lay leaders in the full OSP program to volunteer an hour per week with one of our nonprofit partners and attend six learning community evenings per year.
- Recruit eight more volunteers to join the lay leaders in the volunteer work.
- Infuse their faith community with understanding about how the work brings faith to life, through sermons and congregational education about the work and its impact.
Eight deeply committed communities of faith have signed on:
- Beth Jacob Congregation
- Christ the King Lutheran Church
- Gloria Dei Lutheran Church
- Macalester Plymouth United Church
- St. Anthony Park United Church of Christ
- St. Peter Claver Catholic Church
- St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church
- Saint Thomas More Catholic Church
We are so grateful for this enthusiastic commitment. If your church, synagogue, mosque or other spiritual community wants to join this movement, please contact Sarah Peterka, speterka@interfaithaction.org.