If you’re wondering what all the buzz is about in North County as busy people fix things, prune things and paint things – or if you’re wondering why you can’t use the bathrooms at the Mottino Family YMCA this weekend – why North Coast Church canceled all its services this weekend – then you’re not in the know about the “weekend of service.”
The weekend of service is an initiative of North Coast Church (based in Vista but with several other campuses in North County) to show in very down-to-earth, practical ways what it means to love your neighbor as yourself.
Congregants are encouraged to participate in any one of the myriad of opportunities to serve the community. Projects are organized by team-leaders and range from skilled tasks (such as improving the bathrooms at the YMCA) to unskilled odd jobs such as picking up garbage or painting a fence (Brengle Terrace Park).
Some projects get even closer to the heart, reflecting almost literally Jesus’ commandment to wash one another’s feet. Take the Spa for underprivileged women, for example.
Women who would normally have no opportunity to feel pampered are treated like queens to special treatments and clothes (gently used items provided by church-members). They are made to feel worthy, which serves as a reminder that, no matter what their circumstances might be, they are worthy. Worthy of Jesus’ love.
And for those who cannot give their time, there’s the food bank. You can donate food, diapers, and other household necessities to the church who will then bring them to the various shelters and households that need them.
So, if you’ve been wondering about the yellow or beige T-shirt brigade, wondering why thousands of people are serving the community so joyfully this weekend, now you know. It’s North Coast Church in action, living out the Gospel message in its most practical form. "The church has left the building."
Janey DeMeo M.A.
Copyright© May 2010
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