Outreach News and Opportunities

 The Outreach Committee has been working on developing a town wide church outreach effort.    The outreach coordinators of SUMC, St. Catherine's  RC, Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran, Covenant Presbytarian, St Alban's Episcopal and Trinity Episcopal have been meeting together on a regular basis.   I am optimistic that St Mary's RC may be joining us shortly.  Our immediate goal is to leverage our efforts and resources in outreach ministries and our long term goal may be to blend our opportunities so that we all have more opportunities to choose from.  We've got an exciting opportunity to start this project with a bang!

 ON NOVEMBER 10^TH, WE KICKED OFF OUR GROUP WITH A COMBINED CHURCH LEAF RAKING EVENT FOLLOWED BY A LUNCHEON FOR VOLUNTEERS AND THEIR FAMILIES HELD AT ST. CATHERINE'S OF SIENNA.  

Each church identied recipients of our services, hopefully based upon need, whether it was financial, physical condition or other need based criteria. 

Imagine the evangelical possibilities and freedom to get out and help un-churched people, as a unified group of Christians!   

 We decided to give our association a name.  The name is "One Step Closer-Simsbury".  The name is based upon a song which was written based upon a conversation that the song writer held while his father was dying.  A friend asked the writer if the father believed in God. When the writer responded that the father didn't know, the friend responded, "Well he's one step closer to knowing".  The song describes someone in a bad place that leads to stronger faith.

Given the outreach nature of our group, we felt that One Step Closer name could be totemic for the following concepts:

One Step Closer to Knowing God

One Step Closer to helping solve others' problems

One Step Closer to one Holy, catholic and apostolic Church.

Our long term goal if we are successful is to replicate this in other towns, and get a One Step Closer-Granby, One Step Closer-Avon etc. 

 Thanks for considering this wonderful opportunity.

JoAnne Douglas presenting the Blues Retreat proceeds to residents and the director of Peter's Retreat. The Blues Retreat turned our $642 offering into over $1800 with the support of the congregation, Hartford One and local merchants.