I want to support the vision of the Impact Center!
enter amount in the box, then click the caveman...
Friendship Community Church is a group of people that truly believes we can change the world by serving and loving one person at a time. We want to show Jesus's love to people when they least expect it and least deserve it. We realize that we can only communicate Jesus's love to our community effectively by being present and available in a hands-on way. We want our community to be better because we're here, and that's why we're doing all that we can to impact our community.
So what do we mean by "impact"? Well, in 2010 we...
- Provided Christmas gifts for 75 people including the families at the Hope Center women’s addiction recovery program and students at Mt. Juliet Middle School
- Provided emergency assistance to people in need through our Christmas offering
- Sent an entire shipping container filled with water, tents, blankets, & shoes to provide relief after the earthquake in Haiti
- Cleaned up & loaded a storage building for the Brooks House
- Held a community baby shower for the Crisis Pregnancy Center
- Sorted and bagged 1000's of shoes for Soles4Souls
- Served our community through the Easter Bash with 25,000 eggs and lots of free inflatables, rides and food
- Had an "indoor egg hunt" with the senior adults at Belvedere Commons and played games & crafts with the residents at Providence Assisted Living
- Fed the community through Joseph's Storehouse
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- Helped clean up dozens of homes impacted by the Nashville Flood
- Raised & distributed over $6,000 through our special Flood fund
- Conducted a free community yard sale to give items to flood victims
- Gave away gas and prayed with people at our Pray @ the Pump
- Prepared (and delivered) fish fry for police, firefighters and emergency workers
- Helped build our 3rd Habitat for Humanity home
- Cleaned and restored the Shutes Branch mountain bike trail
- Delivered goodies to folks who had recently moved into our area
- Prepared and served multiple meals for the ladies at the Hope Center
- Conducted a food drive and donated 2,000 lbs of food to MJ Help Center
- Served Lakeview Elementary & provided volunteers for Fall Festival
- Gave away 50 Thanksgiving baskets of groceries to families in need
- Handed out over 1,000 free doughnuts and dozens of gallons of hot chocolate at the MJ Christmas Parade
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As we've worked to meet needs in the community, we've realized that there are many others that we won't be able to meet without a facility. Because we want to continue to grow our influence and maximize our impact for Christ, we are taking steps toward establishing what we call the Impact Center.
Conceptually, the Impact Center will be like a "ministry mall." It will contain ministries and/or meeting spaces for organizations to meet a variety of needs in our community. Unlike many non-profits, the help that we offer will not be limited to a single zip code. While we realize that we can't do everything at once, our goal is to include all of these within the scope of the Center when it is fully developed:
- Coordinate a large-scale grocery ministry. 7% of the homes in our area have a household income of less than $15K. Another 7% are just barely above that poverty line. The first stage of the Center will be to meet this basic need in a way so that every person who lives within a 15-minute drive knows that there is one place that they can come to get food for their family: the Impact Center.
- Host a medical clinic for those who can't otherwise afford healthcare. This will be similar to the Remote Area Medical Clinic at McGavock that we partnered with in February 2011.
- Offer "English second language" classes. This is a need that grows larger in our community daily.
- Provide Celebrate Recovery for recovery from addictions and co-dependency.
- Provide Divorce-Care for support & encouragement for those dealing with divorce.
- Provide Christian-based counseling for relationships, emotional issues, finances, etc.
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- Be a disaster relief site that is certified by the Red Cross. We'll have in-house volunteers trained to run it so that we can respond to a crisis with a fully operational disaster relief center at a moment's notice.
- Provide tutoring for kids. Our goal isn't to replace parents, but to continue to find innovative ways to partner with them.
- Sponsor a respite ministry for parents of special needs children to give them an occasional night out.
- Provide a nice playground for the community. Per capita, Mt. Juliet is way behind the curve on park space.
- Ultimately, establish a worship meeting space for our church and a dedicated kids' space. Our worship center will likely still be a gymnasium so that it, too, can serve as a gift to the community.
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As a church, we've always chosen to invest heavily in meeting the needs of the community rather than our own. As we take this next step toward raising $500,000 to establish the Impact Center, we want to continue be focused on showing God's love to the community. So rather than make radical budget changes where we shut down all of our outreach for 2 years, we plan to keep our budget basically the same. We're simply challenging people who want to see this vision become a reality to give above and beyond their norm.
So THANKS for giving in faith toward the Impact Center! We are blessed to be a blessing, and it simply isn't possible to out-give God. As we've said before: if it's God's will, then it's God's bill, and we have no doubt that He will continue to provide. We aren't limited by our resources, abilities, or ideas. To impact a city with the gospel of Jesus, we can't think small. We will continue to set impossible goals, take bold steps of faith, and watch God move. Because when Jesus is involved, anything can happen.
