Outreach Starts With You
The Outreach Committee is the organized mission at Christ Church Cathedral coordinating our parish’s financial support and volunteer engagement with a set of community partners. We were asked several years ago by the Vestry to work in the three areas of supporting our neighbors experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity, welcoming and supporting our immigrant communities, and combatting systematic racism. Recent political developments have made work in these areas more urgent than ever before. These efforts are completely funded by your financial contributions – it is only through your generosity that this work is possible. While being able to provide substantial financial support is certainly important, our mission is to go further, to build transformative partnerships and interactions with different parts of our central city community.
One of the clearest calls for social justice in scripture is in the beatitudes of Luke’s Gospel:
Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be filled.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you , revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man.Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.
Luke is not talking about the poor as an object of charity, but directly to the poor, making the point that we are all equal members of God’s kingdom, with equal responsibilities to each other. Living up to this scriptural command is our motivation on the Outreach Committee. We want to engage with the full range of people in Indianapolis to take on the social injustices we are commanded to confront.
Our longest-running community partner is The Dayspring Center. A longtime Episcopal-affiliated ministry, the Dayspring Center is a shelter for families experiencing homelessness. It is one of a very limited number of shelters in central Indiana that takes whole families, providing both temporary emergency shelter, along with the full range of services to help make these families self-sufficient. The Outreach Committee organizes several events a year for any Christ Church Cathedral member to get involved, including painting shelter rooms, helping with yardwork, and throwing a Christmas party for shelter children.
For the last couple of years, we have worked with Exodus. This organization helps resettle refugee families from around the world in Indianapolis. This includes all of the things that go into resettling people in a new country: arranging accommodations and furnishings, providing language classes, helping in the job search, and just being supportive and friendly to our newest neighbors. Exodus’s activities are presently in flux given the changes in immigration and refugee policy of the current administration, but they need ongoing assistance helping to sort and organize items at their donations facility.
VOICES is our newest community partner. They provide an array of programs, including education and art therapy, to Black teenagers and young adults who have experienced the trauma of poverty, racism, and violence. Their goal is to break the generational barriers of being poor and Black in Indianapolis. We have helped them with several special events, and for a truly transformative experience, there are mentoring opportunities available working with the young people involved in VOICES’s programs.
| Total Missional Activities | $112,000 |
|---|---|
| Outreach team | $2,500 |
| Faith-Based Advocacy | $7,500 |
| Homeless Partner Grant (Dayspring) | $30,000 |
| Sunday Community Breakfast | $12,000 |
| Immigration Partner Grant (Exodus) | $30,000 |
| Racial Inequity Partner Grant (VOICES) | $30,000 |
As stated above, the goal here is not just to provide financial support but to build transformative relationships. The goal of Christ Church Cathedral is to transform our city – and this will transform you as well. Here’s the really great part – anyone can get involved at any level they feel called to. Whether you have been attending services here for a couple of weeks or a couple of decades, there are opportunities for everything from a limited involvement to taking on a leadership role in any of these areas. We are particularly looking for people interested in working with our immigration efforts. If you are interested, please contact Dave Strong, the Outreach Committee Chair, at dastrong@iu.edu.
