Starbucks Offering this Sunday

Guest Blog: Brad O’Brien

Coming up this Sunday (May 18th) we, as a congregation, will give our starbucks offering. Over the past four or five weeks you have heard about this offering, but I wanted to use J.D.’s blog as a platform to explain it to you one more time and give you a glimpse of how we plan on using the money that we give this Sunday.

If you have been around the Summit for a little while you know that each summer we make a concentrated effort to love and bless our community. Our goal for the week of hope isn’t to give you a once a year experience of community ministry. Our goal is that the week of hope each summer will be a launching pad for you to find a way to participate in ministering to our community on a regular and ongoing basis.

As we thought about the offering that will help supplement this effort we wanted to give you the opportunity to experience something special. As a congregation, the Summit is very generous. That is actually an understatement. The Summit has proven over the past six years to be ridiculously generous. But our goal with this offering isn’t just to get you to write a check. We want you to experience the joy that comes from knowing that by sacrificing affordable luxuries in your life, others can be blessed.
What are affordable luxuries? For some of you they may include unused memberships, manicures, pedicures, eating out, going to the movies, $4 coffee drinks, bottled water, new shoes, etc. I am not sure what affordable luxuries means to you, but I know that we as a church regularly enjoy affordable luxuries while many of our neighbors don’t have enough to provide their families with the necessities for daily life. How is God leading you to sacrifice so that others can be blessed?

This summer we have several opportunities arranged for the Summit and other congregations in the RDU area to come together and serve our community. This summer we are working with three of our local elementary schools to meet some of the needs that their principals and staff have identified. At some of these schools we will be repainting hallways and classrooms, scrapping chewing gum off of desks, removing staples from cork boards, refreshing landscaping, and many other tasks. We plan to have more than 1,000 volunteers serve these three schools over two days (July 11 & 12). We are also arranging a free dental clinic and general health care clinic for the community of North East Central Durham. We are working with a couple of our local ministry partners to provide a free car care clinic for people that are in need  and just need someone that they can trust to look at their car and give them some help. We will continue to work on our Habitat for Humanity house that is being built in North East Central Durham to use our resources to provide affordable housing to families in need. An apartment complex in North East Central Durham has approached us and asked us to bless them by doing a beautification project at their property. We are planning to do some exterior painting, window washing, trash pick-up, and landscaping. These are some of the projects that we are currently working on for the body of Christ to mobilize in a concentrated effort to serve and bless our community. These are just a few of the efforts that will be made possible by the money we give this Sunday. Please prayerfully consider how you can sacrifice so that our community can be blessed in an intentional way!

Check for updates of projects and info at www.hopefordurham.com