​Our Baptismal Covenant directs us to “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself” and to “strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being. As we strive to achieve this, we get to the very heart of what it means to follow Christ.
 

The purpose of Outreach is to build on the Christian mission of doing God’s work in the world, reaching out to our neighbors, both near and far. As the Reverend Pablo told us in his sermon last week, “There are many Christian groups working to erase poverty, to improve education, to raise living standards, and to bring medical help to those who need it. But the scream of the poor still calls out to us. There are homeless people living in tents and under bridges.  There are still entire populations suffering from famine,  There are still countless people dying from curable diseases. And Jesus is still urging us to do whatever we can to help them. The challenge can seem overwhelming. Nonetheless, if each one of us could add an hour or two every month to answer the Lord’s call, that would mean an increase of thousands of hours. Imagine the joy it would give Jesus to see all his people taking their spiritual anointing seriously and laboring to set people free!”

With covid and doing church distantly it may seem like we are not doing this – not reaching out. But with grateful giving hearts there are many that have been here to see that we continued to have services every week. Altar guild, office help, cleaners, yard workers and snow shovelers,  musicians,  communication through e-mail and Facebook, weekly video with zoom and Facebook, lay, Reverend Pablo and each person who attended church (rather in person or through media). Additionally, St. Stephen’s had a small group that met weekly in the kitchen following all safety protocols to make sandwiches for the feeding ministry at St. Mark’s Hildegard’s Food Pantry. We collected backpacks for the children going back to school and  in Advent bought presents and cookies with drive-by Santa for the children in Dream Academy with St. Mathew’s Lutheran Church and St. Elizabeth’s Episcopal Church in Whiterock. Then in December St. Stephen’s/San Esteban hosted two vaccine clinics with financial help from the Diocese of Utah – one for covid vaccine and one for influenza vaccine, which were well attended and will help protect many that might not otherwise have been able to be vaccinated.

I pray that each of us can and will say as Rev. Pablo closed his sermon:  “Here I am, Lord.  You have anointed me, and I want to serve.”

 

By Deanna Anderson