New Around the Mission

Parish Works in the Community for Serve Austin Sunday

June 14, 2011

The Rev. Perry Koon thinks feeding homeless people is just as important as preaching a sermon. That’s why he doesn’t mind shutting the doors of his church every fifth Sunday of the year so that his parish, Hope Mission Church in Austin, Texas, can attend Serve Austin Sunday, a day of serving the community outside church walls.

“The church in the West as a whole has a credibility problem,” Perry says. “You change it one church at a time—not by getting militant or hunkering down, but by getting out there and loving people.”

Serve Austin Sunday was created by the Restore Communities initiative, a team of pastors bringing together interdenominational churches in an ongoing effort to live out Christ’s love in the city. Hope Mission joined them eight months ago, and on each Serve Austin Sunday, parishioners individually volunteer to help with the projects of their choice.

At the most recent Serve Austin Sunday on May 29, Perry helped serve hot dogs and hamburgers to 400 homeless people at the Downtown Grillout, just one of the workday’s 13 projects. Others parishioners helped with projects like partnering with Communities in Schools to do a campus makeover on Blackshear Elementary School, and coming alongside Blackland Community Development to continue renovation on their community center and community gardens.

“That’s our main strategy to get exposure in the community—in lieu of spending money on things like home mailers,” Perry says. “We go into community and get to know people.”

That continual involvement is also giving the parish a strong identity and message to share.

“It’s created a paradigm shift of what it is to be the church,” Perry explains. “Church is not bricks and mortar on Sunday; it’s who we are as followers of Jesus, and we experience that through serving others. Another benefit our folks get is being able to talk about who they are as followers of Jesus rather than just having a Sunday event to invite people to. It gives them another story to talk about."

And as the community listens to the new story of Hope Mission, Perry says people are “energized and encouraged by it.”

“I’ve seen how thankful people are to be served, and how gracious they are. As we give grace to the homeless or the poor, there’s so much gratitude in return.”

Learn more at Hope Mission Church.

Posted By: Cynthia P. Brust
Categories: Faith in Action