A few years before we began our church, I heard about a ministry in town called Advancing Vibrant Communities (AVC). The basic idea of this ministry is to connect real needs with real answers. How? AVC does this by raising the awareness of community needs (big and small) and then connecting individuals who are willing to physically or financially meet that need. It is really easy…AVC maintains an online list of community needs called: Daily Opportunities that community volunteers can access daily.
With a quick phone call, the details are provided and the connection is made. Volunteers (individuals or churches) can quickly get to work meeting the need. Sometimes it requires just muscle and momentum and at other times it may require coordinating the right people to get the job done. From the beginning, I thought this was brilliant. For a smaller church like ours, practical service in the local area is difficult to locate and initiate. Recognition of the need, organization and facilitation are all reasons why a willing individual would not typically help. That is the beauty of a ministry like AVC. They have already found the needs…all they need are volunteers.
Whereas a large church may have an active ministry to the homeless or to local missions, many small churches or motivated individuals lack that resource. So, why reinvent the wheel? God is already working in our local area. We just need to join him with our time, treasure and talents.
Last night, I had the opportunity to join the team at AVC on their live podcast where I shared a little more about what motivates me to serve with them. If you get the opportunity, give the interview a listen. I hope it motivates you to serve in your own local community. If you live in the Central Valley and want to serve in some small way, let me know and I’ll do what I can to coordinate you with AVC.
CLICK TO PLAY...
- clip courtesy of theMangoTimes.com!
Quietly Making Noise,
Fletch
Posted on May 19th, 2009 by Fletch
Filed under: What I believe
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