Outreach & Volunteer Opportunities

Outreach & Volunteer Opportunities are really other words for Ministry. Everything that the Church does is ministry. All ministry begins with a need: what needs to be done to love and serve the Lord and one another. Those are the words that we use as dismissal at our Sunday Eucharist: “Let us go forward to love and serve the Lord and one another.” We follow Jesus’ words: “I have come to serve not to be served.” (Mt. 20:28)

In order to follow this command, the Calumet Episcopal Ministry Partnership (CEMP) has many opportunities. There is a community garden at St. Timothy’s’s (with plans to build more beds at St. Paul’s). Once-a-month groups from St. Paul’s prepare and serve dinner to the community at Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in East Chicago. The Food Pantry at St. Timothy’s’s has been providing needed food to those in need for many years. Recently, Gloria Dei Lutheran Church has become a supporter and helper in this ministry. St. Barnabas has been a support of the local schools by collecting and distributing school supplies at the beginning of each school year.

Throughout the year there are many social events that keep us in fellowship with each other and the bigger communities within which we live. There are Teas (usually with a timely theme), Spaghetti Dinners, picnics, Soup on Saturdays, and other fun things. All these take time, effort and people and are wonderful opportunities to serve.

Of course, there are always projects that need to be done around all four of our locations. God’s House is like all houses, and they need to be maintained. But many hands make light work.

The most important outreach/ministry is the one that extends from each individuals heart and soul; the need that one recognizes and takes upon themselves.

Let us go forward to love and serve the Lord and one another.