Finding Food for a Community in Need – Concordia Lutheran

After the stay at home order and ensuing economic struggles to our community, Concordia Lutheran Church was determined to continue being a Matthew 28 church. Concordia put out an urgent request to its congregation and to the Green Mountain community for food or money donations to help support the pantry at Foothills Elementary School, called “Foothills Foodies” and the Jeffco Action Center our community’s main Nonprofit supporting food supply for the city. The church members and the community around the church responded with an abundance of love and joy! As of April 1, there have been over $2,000 in cash donations and over 600 lbs of food donated. Concordia will continue this food drive every Saturday until all needs go away! Food donations can be delivered to Concordia Lutheran Church and cash donations on the website (be sure to choose COVID-19 Care Cases as your donation destination). Pastors: Gregg McCaslin and Patrick Moore

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Church is OPEN! Stories about Calvary Belmar

Calvary Belmar has been active supporting Foster and Adoption families. Their worship each week is full of the Spirit and that Spirit has moved them into the neighborhood around them through acts like this:

• Single Moms: They assist single moms with groceries cards, ground beef and recently distributed $1200 worth of Grocery Store and Walmart gift cards.
• Food: The church supports the Action Center with volunteers and collects food for foster care families.
• Prayer: Church leaders model a community pastoral prayer. Recently a staff member engaged a grocery store manager about praying for her. She began to cry, thanked the pastor and said; “We need it!”
• Homeless: Local homeless friend, Rick, lives in his car. After the car broke down church members towed it to a shop and put him in a hotel for the weekend. Now he’s good to go!
• Local Businesses!  The Church supports a couple of local restaurants by purchasing burritos then distributing them to front line workers at other local businesses! They also donated PPE for their employees. This is how “Love your Neighbor” is preached effectively today!

For more information, email Pastor Scott Morrison.

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Mission 98 turning Bad Times into Opportunities for Connection

Mission 98 is all about building caring relationships in high need apartments, motels and mobile homes. Recently, Mission 98 team members have focused on delivering food bags door to door. After the delivery they ask, “Would you like us to pray for you?” Almost everyone says, “Yes!” The “caring” part of their mission is all about relationship connections.

Each person has a story… they’ve heard stories about of the family member deaths, miscarriages, job losses and fear. Relationships help heal fearful hearts!  Just because the world is in chaos doesn’t mean we have to allow it to own and control our community! Contact LuAnn for more information and how to help.

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Practical Marriage Advice for your neighbors from Vineyard Lakewood

Troubling times are especially hard on family relationships. Weeks into quarantine, every family relationship will show signs of strain! That’s why Vineyard Lakewood has put some helpful marriage tip fliers out in neighborhoods where members live! “Hope” is just wishful thinking until you make it tangible, achievable and practical!

– Pastor Christian Summers 

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A small church taking on a big mission: reduce community suffering – Mission Lakewood

Mission Lakewood Church began to respond to the impact of COVID-19 immediately! They redesigned their website and social media pages to aim their members and friends towards opportunities to help.

Near the church is Foothills Elementary, so Mission is supporting their pantry, “Foothills Foodies.” This church of 100 brought 27 bags of food filled with what a family would need for a full day. The church has continued to be an important partner in their neighborhood supporting food drives and delivering it to families in need.

For Pastor Darvin Wallis, it feels overwhelming to consider how much need and suffering is bubbling just below the surface. But, as he watched people show up with bags of food he knew that; “God’s got this!” Three church member families have lost their jobs, and yet, all three of those families brought food for children in the community! Three families who were not sure how they were going to pay their mortgage were still buying food to give to others! That kind of love and sacrifice is irrational yet that’s exactly the sort of love Jesus equips us to have.

For several years now I have been taking some time in the late fall to get away on a spiritual retreat. This consists of going to a retreat center for 3 or 4 nights. There are many different places that are free or discounted for pastors to go to. One that I have gone to is free. Last year I went the way of an Airbnb in Steamboat Springs. I would not suggest this route unless you know the place is isolated. While I was able to accomplish a lot, I could have accomplished more in an isolated location.

I began this practice after my second year of ministry in 2017. This is my first church as the lead pastor; I was feeling overwhelmed, beat up, spiritually dry, directionless and so much more. Trying to get through this at home was just too hard. At home there were too many distractions and too many people vying for my time. I felt like I was constantly dodging arrows. I needed to rest and reset.

I have known of different retreat centers from my time in Indiana. There was a place in Danville, IN, on a farm that my pastor at the time knew about. We had a staff and spouse retreat at this place. The man who owned the farm had built it himself to bless pastors and their families with a place to go at no cost. You only needed to bring yourself and your food. This place was amazing, there was enough room to sleep 12 comfortably, a hot tub, huge fireplace, a pond to fish out of and so much more. But the best thing that it provided was a place of solitude. A place where you could get away from everything and get with God.

So when I needed such a place I began searching online and was fortunate to find a great little cabin on a ranch. I love that there are farmers out there with a heart to bless pastors. I was able to secure a reservation at the beginning of December in 2017.

After my first spiritual retreat, I was convinced that this is something that needs to be a regular yearly practice. I have determined that for myself, early October would be the ideal time. I say this for a couple of reasons, first it allows me time to be prepared for the upcoming holiday season, second it allows me to seek God’s direction for my church for the upcoming year. I am able to get a handle on the next years preaching calendar, hear from God about the things I need to focus on personally, pray a lot, sit in God’s presence and rest.

I don’t lead a large church, however, that doesn’t keep the enemy from trying to tear me down, frustrate me or attack me from all sides. As pastors we all need a time of rest, a time to relax and be in God’s presence and recuperate. We all know about Sabbath, we preach about it, encourage others to honor it, but how often do we truly practice Sabbath? We may be able to take a family vacation, but let’s be honest, the first two days you’re trying to relax and depending on your family relaxing may not be a possibility, then when you finally do get the chance it’s time to go home, back to your ministry and the demands that are a part of that.

When I returned from this year’s retreat, my heart was softer than it has been in a long time. God used my time with Him to challenge me personally and professionally. Today, I am convinced that I would not have handled this Covid-19 situation as well as I have been able to. I have been able to lead boldly and decisively, because my heart was already prepared.

I encourage any pastor to take a yearly spiritual retreat. You, your family and your ministry will be better because you did.

Psalm 34:8 Taste and see that the Lord is good. Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him!

Pastor Michael Hooven – Cloverdale Church of God

The following is a story of helping a single parent in Lakewood through connections made by Lakewood Connects.

The Community and Family Connections Department at the JeffCo School District supports families who are experiencing housing instability. Through our intensive outreach since Covid-19, we have heard from many families who are struggling with food insecurities.  On a recent call, I spoke with a single mom struggling financially to put food on her table and just making it to pay housing bills. Mom has an immune compromising health issue, which is a barrier to her working as she cannot be in the public at this time. Her daughter has gluten and dairy limitations, limiting food that can be purchased. With finances being so tight, mom stressed how she would afford the gluten free and dairy free diet her daughter requires.

Through my connections with Reg Cox with Lakewood Connects, we were able to connect the family with The Bridge Church at Bear Creek.  The group at The Bridge, did an amazing job to fill this need. Not only did they provide some of mom’s wish list items but also way above and beyond.  Mom called after the delivery, crying tears of joy. She stated that it gave her some light and relieved a little stress off of meals for the week.  Her daughter was even more excited because her favorite gluten free baguettes were in the box. Thank you team for wrapping your arms around this mom, we cannot express our gratitude.

Naomi Xayavongsa – Community and Family Connections Coordinator, Jeffco Schools – Title I office

Especially in these times it’s vital that we make like the Beatles song and come together. Churches, schools, and the communities they serve ought to be working together to address the needs of their families. I’m the new Jr. High director at our church and, though my responsibilities are often tied to the students and families of our church, I believe that I’m here to serve and work with the larger Bridge Church community.

As soon as I was informed of Jennifer and her child’s situation I was ready to drop what I was doing and do some grocery shopping. I dropped off everything from pasta to gluten free breakfast bars. Jennifer texted us letting us know how excited her child was and I know that this would have never happened if it hadn’t been for the teamwork between the church and the school. Our church and the school are firm believers in working together to serve the greater community. Though this may have been a quick grocery run I know it means so much more to Jennifer, her family, and our community to know that we’re coming together, right now, to serve our families.

Matt Bowen – Jr. High and Community pastor / Bridge Church at Bear Creek

 

Through Lakewood Connects’ support of local PTAs at under-served elementary schools, we have enjoyed more connections with more of our community. Recently, PTA leader and close friend Brandi Koskie, who supports Foothills Elementary School, reached out with a connection to her friend Lauren Martin, the National Retail Activation Manager for Lily’s Sweets in Boulder, Colorado. Lily’s wanted to donate some of their product, high-end candy, to an appropriate entity. In conversations with Lauren I found out that they had over 1500 individual units of candy to donate…quite a lot!

I was able to reach out to friend Monica Buhlig, Group Director of Community Health, Denver Metro Region for Centura Health. She connected me to Amanda Popp, Philanthropy Officer at St. Anthony Health Foundation, who informed me that starting Friday, May 15, it was “Hospital Week.” She arranged for a day when Lily’s could drop off the candy at the hospital. Then, administrators could hand deliver it to the 1500 employees at the hospital thanking them for their front line service. 

This is greatly satisfying for everyone in the community to be able to serve the front line servants!

In addition, Amanda mentioned that community members could give her homemade “thank you” and encouragement posters to set up along the walls of the employee entrance to the hospital. Local chamber of commerce group Alameda Connects and the local Thrivent Financial office made posters.

The response from Amanda from St. Anthony’s reads: “Thank you again for your tremendous support of St. Anthony Hospital during this challenging time–we are grateful for your partnership. I hung the posters yesterday and wanted to share a few photos. These are located at the associate entrance and will provide joy and encouragement to our caregivers on a daily basis. It means a lot that you and your families took the time to create these!”. 

Amanda reports that the Lily’s Sweets candy was a “huge hit” among the Flight for Life crewmembers!  

Lakewood Connects exists to make connections that transform the story of our community from one of detachment, struggle, and fear to one of connection, thriving, and courage. Thanks for your support and encouragement that makes it possible to do the impossible!