Briefs: Advocacy for Homeless, Abuse Victims

New Harvest to Participate in ‘Tent City’

OREGON, OHIO (October 26, 2011) – New Harvest Christian Church, a Covenant congregation, is collecting white athletic socks to help the homeless. The church will participate this weekend in a “Tent City” to raises awareness of the plight of the homeless.

People from churches and other organizations will “camp out” alongside the people of Toledo who regularly spend their days and nights on the streets.

The socks are invaluable assets to a person who lives on the streets because dry, warm feet are essential to maintaining good health, one church member says.

An organization called 1Matters has organized the event for 21 years. Supporters have included Toledo city offices as well as United Way, more than 30 restaurants, and a number of local churches. This year’s tent city event will take place Friday through Sunday.

Mosaic Covenant AVA Event Raises Abuse Awareness

SUGAR LAND, TX (October 26, 2011) – Mosaic Community Covenant Church hosted an Advocacy for Victims of Abuse (AVA) training event that drew 30 people from five churches in the Houston area.

As part of the “Awareness Weekend,” Anna Marie Peterson, a Midsouth Conference regional coordinator for AVA, presented information about victims of domestic abuse and shared her own story.

Many of the attendees are in positions of church leadership and said afterwards that they are even more committed to encouraging their congregations to become “places of refuge.” AVA is an outreach of the Department of Women Ministries of the Evangelical Covenant Church.

Cardinal George: Society Based On Trust

CHICAGO, IL (October 26, 2011) A vibrant society can be built and maintained only if people can trust each other, Cardinal Francis George, archbishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, said in a recent lecture at North Park University.

“It’s the dissolution of trust that creates the end of society,” George said. “In order to build it up, you have to go back to giving and reciprocity – and therefore, it becomes a matter of who is trustworthy. That is more important than anything else.”

George also addressed issues related to Catholic social teaching. The family is “the basic social unit. On almost any issue that comes along, you ask how this will affect the family. Protection of the family is a primary governing principle of a lot of Catholic social teaching.”

Those teachings, he added, are “proposed as principles and values that can sustain a society worthy of the human person.”

George’s remarks came when he delivered the Kermit Zarley Lecture at the University’s Anderson Chapel on October 13.

Picture of The Covenant Companion

The Covenant Companion

The Covenant Companion brings together stories and voices that connect, inform, and inspire. Subscribe to our print edition.
CONTINUE READING

Explore More Stories & News

In 2018, Susan Scott and Evelyn Johnson led a Crescendo seminar for twenty-nine people from seven Covenant churches in Stow, Massachusetts.
Features

Crescendo: How the Ministry Grew


Crescendo began as a pilot project in 2016 to help people sixty and older keep living fully with God and each other. For its tenth anniversary, its founders look back at how the ministry has grown and changed.

Features

Tuesdays at Good Sam

In a small California town with no senior center, Cathy LaManna started a weekly game afternoon at church. Three years in, the people who come are treated like family, and some of them have started coming on Sundays, too.

Features

The Readers

How a young man who grew up in a devout Roman Catholic family became a vocal atheist and then found a home in the Evangelical Covenant Church.

Tre’ Crume
Features

Cov Doings: Youth Ministry Edition

Stories from Covenant youth ministry about a student-led worship night, a paid summer service program, and a forty-year-old gathering for middle schoolers.