CareFest: Rochester

For the fourth straight year, more than 1,000 volunteers will spread across Rochester, Minnesota, for CareFest, a church-sponsored event that focuses on sprucing up the community. Around 1,200 people have signed up to work at about 60 sites around Rochester, according to the Rev. Larry Orth of Calvary Evangelical Free Church.

The largest number of CareFest volunteers will work at Graham Park, where around 200 people are expected to do painting, landscaping, power washing, and other cleaning, Orth said. Around 300 people worked at the fairgrounds during the event last year.

For the full story as reported by Matt Russell in the Post-Bulletin:
http://www.postbulletin.com/newsmanager/templates/localnews_story.asp?z=2&a=404172

Flamingo-ing Students

Calvary EFC, Rochester, MN, high school youth had their second annual flamingo-ing season this spring. For a fee, multiple plastic flamingos are placed in the yard of unsuspecting recipients. In order to get rid of them, the recipients must pay to have them transferred to another unsuspecting recipient’s yard! This year's fundraiser is in support of a high school missions trip in Seattle (June 29 - July 7) where the students will be helping to plant a church, offering some physical labor, emotional support and showing God's love to the people downtown.

Strategic Partnerships

Developing a draft of strategic initiatives for 2009, Calvary EFC, Rochester, MN leaders partnered with the leadership of both the EFCA North Central District (NCD) and Constance EFC, Andover, MN. In January the NCD announced the Constance EFC core leadership team as an available resource for churches throughout the NCD who want feedback and suggestions on staffing structure, goal setting, metrics for assessing effectiveness in ministry, and other related leadership and organizational subjects. What was the motivation to do this now? Calvary EFC Pa. Todd Olson (pictured) answered in the congregations monthly newseltter, The Calvary Courier, "...because our Lord Jesus Christ expects us to be good stewards of all that He gives us (Matthew 25:14-30). In the end, we want to honor Him in all that we do as individuals, families, and as a family of families."

How has your church benefitted from the wealth of ministry resources available through the EFCA national office, districts and sister churches?

Church: A Black Hole

"The church is the black hole that sucks Christians out of society." That provocative statement was how Dan Moose, Director of Church Planting for the EFCA’s North Central District, recently led the "Cultivating a Culture of Outreach" seminar held at Calvary EFC in Rochester, MN. Moose challenged the participants to consider both the culture of the church and how they as individuals related to the community of the lost. The challenge focused on key questions:

• Is your church an attracting (i.e., trying to get people to come to you) or a sending (i.e., meet people where they are at) kind of church?
• Do you have “pagan” friends who would call you in a crisis?
• Do you see your neighbors “eternally, not externally”?
  

Moose walked through the perceived cost to cultivating a culture of outreach and shared a framework for churches to move forward with community outreach.