Loading...“Tend my sheep,” Jesus told his followers, and Episcopalians in our diocese, responding to a challenge from the deacons, are doing just that in their communities. Since the challenge was issued at convention in November, they have recorded 3,242 hours of service to 6,466 people.
To date, 22 churches, most joining since January, and the diocesan staff are participating in the deacon’s “Tend My Sheep: 2014 Loving Service initiative.” The initiative is designed to inspire, support, document and report acts of outreach and loving service to our neighbors. Together during the upcoming church year, the deacons hope to collectively record one half million hours of service to our neighbors. Although this number sounds astounding, it requires only that each of our church members give one hour per week (or four to five hours per month) for 50 weeks.
The brainchild of Deacon Mary Abrams, chair of the diocese’s Peace and Justice Division, “Tend My Sheep” was conceived to encourage us as Christians to keep our focus outward and not inward, especially important at this time when many of our parishes are in transition.
“We are simply reaching out to others outside of the church,” said Deacon Mary. “We already do that a lot, but we do not always recognize that we are fulfilling the word of Christ. It’s to help us get focused on what it means to be a Christian and live out our baptismal vows.”
The survey shows that keeping track of the numbers of hours and people served tells only part of our story of service. Equally important is documenting the many ways we serve our families, friends and neighbors. The top 10 ways we have served include visiting someone, feeding people, praying for others, providing personal assistance, clothing someone, providing transportation, teaching others, giving someone shelter, taking communion, and counseling someone. Many of us have crocheted hats for mariners; several of us have participated in the World Day of Prayer events, sent cards (and “jolly grams”) and shoveled snow while some have given platelets to the Red Cross apheresis program, taken someone to the emergency room and written to a prisoner, just to name a few examples of service.
“Tend My Sheep is not super structured,” so determining what counts as service is really up to each person, said Deacon Mary.
If you haven’t already begun to keep track of your service, it’s not too late. Several churches have just started the initiative, using Lent to kick it off. All you need to do is to keep track of your service hours and people served, and then complete the online survey or give them to a designated person in your parish who can do this for you. (If your parish does not have a designated person, contact one of the diocese’s deacons.)
To record the service online, however, is easy. Just go to the diocese’s website (www.episcopalky.org) and find the Tend My Sheep link via the Ministries menu. Once there, complete the quick, five-question survey. If you have any difficulties, please contact Deacon Mary Abrams (meabrams@bellsouth.net) or Deacon Mary Jane Cherry (mysaintandrews.org)
We encourage everyone to join our challenge and help us reach our goal of 1/2 million hours of loving service.
