Ministries We Support

Zoe International

Blog

Mark, Pattie, and Bekah Kenney have spent several years developing a ministry in The Philippines. During their extended medical sabatical, COVID-19 hit. Mark and Pattie have been trying to return to their little squatter village for many months, but borders remain closed. While they wait, they are ministering to friends and neighbors in Texas.
City's Edge supports the Kenneys financially and prayerfully, and have sent some of our folks to Pandan on short-term mission trips.

Union Gospel Mission Portland

During 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, City's Edge members were lead to connect and eventually partner with the Union Gospel Mission's womens' ministry, which is working to provide safe housing for women and their children in crisis. We support UGM prayerfully and practically, and are now blessed to call several of these women our own.
Heather and Shae have both given us permission to link to their video stories. Watch them and be inspired!

How We Decide

Individuals at City’s Edge are involved in many different ministries, from sponsoring children through Compassion International to serving at the local pregnancy resource centers, from going on short term mission trips to Haiti to sewing quilts for the VA. We love that our people are carrying out the Great Commission in so many different, creative ways.

But when we contemplate bringing a new ministry to the entire congregation, we know that we need to be stewards of our people’s time, attention, and resources.

Of course the most critical question we ask is whether we are in theological and spiritual unity with a ministry that is looking to connect. Once this basic hurdle is cleared, we have three additional questions we ask to see if the opportunity is a good fit.

  1. Do we have the People to support this ministry?
  2. Do we have a corporate Passion for this ministry?
  3. Does this mission match our church’s Personality?
Sometimes, unfortunately, the answer is “no” to at least one of these questions. When that happens, we don’t take any further steps to connect. But when we answer “yes,” the next step is to bring the ministry or missionary before our Back Support group.

Back Support

This small group has been meeting together in some form for ten years. Currently they meet monthly especially to pray for the ministries and missionaries that we support. They maintain communication with each mission, plan events and pursue other practical ways to support those involved, and finally they vette any new opportunities for connection and support. Some of the criteria they consider are whether the ministry or missionaries are already established, have a solid mission, vision, and plan, and have one or more point people who are engaged communicators, eager to know and be known by our church.

If you grew up in a church, you may have memories of random missionaries passing through from time to time, showing slides of third-world countries, telling stories, and hoping to raise support. If your experience was like many of ours, aside from a photo on an obscure bulletin board you’d never heard of these missionaries before they took over a Sunday service, and once they were gone you probably never heard of them again.

This is not how we want to be at City’s Edge. When we choose to support a missionary or ministry, we go all in. We want to Know them. Perhaps most critically, we connect on social media. A Lot. We ask for prayer requests - and not just those about visas and passing health concerns, but the deeper, scarier ones about family strain, struggling individuals in their mission fields, leadership difficulties, and the like. We reciprocate by providing prayer requests of our own. We find out what sorts of resources they really need, and at least once or twice a year provide personalized care packages. Our kids make friends with their kids. When they’re local, we send people to see them quite often. When they’re outside the US, we send a small team every few years. We serve on their boards and help build their websites. We “have their backs.” Once we’ve been doing this within the Back Support group for an Entire year, then we consider bringing them before the congregation as a whole with events, visits, fundraising drives, and the like. This is when it gets even more fun!

Supporting Individuals in Financial Crisis

City’s Edge is committed to giving of our financial resources to organizations and individuals where we have history and relationship.

You'll hear it a lot if you hang around us: “At City's Edge we make it personal.” This is perhaps especially true in the area of charitable giving. We have discovered that people usually need more than quick cash in a crisis: they need support and help to discern their legitimate needs as well as assistance in figuring out a sustainable way to meet those needs. This happens best in community and relationship. It takes time, it takes trust, and it takes honesty from both those giving and receiving.

Our desire is to see people establish and sustain patterns of stewardship. Almost all of us make poor or impulsive financial decisions. Sometimes it is a crisis that puts us in a situation needing help and sometimes it is a pattern of poor resource management. At City's Edge we care for people in both situations. Therefore, the first step we take when someone in our community is in financial need is to connect them with a sponsor who can look into their situation and offer ideas to help the individual steward their own resources. This gets personal. The more the sponsor knows, the better their input and advice will be. Our sponsors genuinely care about the people they connect with. City's Edge sponsors are people of grace and wisdom and that is why we affirm them in this role. This role is never about judgement; it’s about graceful assistance in understanding the causes of and contributors to poor financial health.

Often people in need aren't ready to receive this sort of support, especially disclosing their full situation and taking hard advice. These people we can't help. Others are willing to receive support take advice and disclose their situation. These people we can help!

When someone is working well with their sponsor, implementing their advice, and being honest and transparent, the sponsor may act as an advocate and ask the church for money on their behalf. It is unlikely that we would help someone financially if they made the request themselves. It is much more likely for us to give if the request comes from one of our sponsors.

What about the stranger? We offer the stranger what we offer anyone in our congregation: a willingness to connect and make it personal. Remember that this takes time, it takes trust and it takes honesty. We are commanded to “give to anyone who asks” (Luke 6:30), and we are eager to do this. However, we don't think it is wise to offer cash to a person or organization we are unfamiliar with. Instead, we are happy to offer a care bag filled with basic toiletries and other necessities to someone in need it even if we don't have a relational connection.

Service Four

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