one love 2010 annual review

one love | annual review 2010

PROGRESS

2010 RECAPMEASURING SUCCESS

CHRISTINE’S STORY

reinventing outreachON-LO.ORG

SPREADING THE CAUSEDIANE’S STORY

RECAPRECAP

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15THE TEAM 17

OUR STORYONE Love is a movement to motivate and engage the church to come together and serve each other incommunity.

We envision communities built by Jesus Christ, valuing compassion, generosity and humility over power, wealth and prestige.

We believe in building relationships, and that we can reach amaximum impact of the love of God in relationships.

The transformational power of Jesus, working in us and though us; using our talents, gifts, resources and emotions.

Taught by the spirit and moved by the inspiration of Jesus. We naturally grow where God directs. With no worldly rush we create healthy, simple and sustainable programs.

117

42007400

year

projects implemented

people served

volunteer hours served

SO FAR WE HAVE TOUCHED 4200 LIVES IN OUR COMMUNI-TIES. YET THERE ARE MORE PEOPLE WAIT-ING FOR A KINGDOM IMPACT.

WE SERIOUSLY PLAN TO CHANGE THE WORLD

04 | ONE LOVE 2010 ANNUAL REVIEW ON-LO.ORG

PROGRESS

2010 RECAPMEASURING SUCCESS

CHRISTINE’S STORY


GREW in a challenging financial environment. We could increase our budget by 200%

IN

WE....

2010

LAUNCHED a new webside for ONE love. on-lo.org went live in July 2010 and since than had more than 4500 clicks

EXPANDED local initiatives, projects and events from 3 to 17.

EDUCATED our congregation and community on issues close to our heart through local nights.

WERE NOTICED by local churches, organizations and newspapers.

http://on-lo.org

2010 recap


measuring success

What is success? Ministries use plenty of different metrics to figure that out. Since the beginning of ONE love, we’ve focused on helping one person at a time. Part of how we gauge our success is by the number of people we serve. In 2010, we helped almost 4500 people through our initiatives and projects.

GRACE SOUPOur monthly Soup Kitchen met 12 times in 2010, cooking close to 60 Gallons of Soup, serving about 600 people

BACK TO SCHOOL DRIVEWe sent 200 back packs filled with school supplies to the Lowell Freshman Academy, touching not only the lives of the students helped, but relieved their families of a burden as well. The bag to school drive impacted close to 750 lives.

BAGS FOR HAITIAs a response to the earthquake in Haiti we sent 90 bags filled with hygiene items, candy and small toys to the or-phans in our partner orphanage in Port aux Prince.

GRACE FALL CLEAN UPOver 320 members of our church participated in radical wor-ship. A Sunday morning, used to get dirty for the sake of the gospel. 40 backyards were cleaned, lives were changed.

LOCAL NIGHTSWe hosted the first awareness nights to bring attention to teen crisis, foster parenting & adoption, and missional living. This was one of our first steps to engage our communities.

BRIGHTON OUTREACHIn our effort to break the walls of the church and be the church, we gave a hand-up to a small church in Brighton and helped with their summer outreach project.

ANGEL FOODIn 2010 we became an Angel Food distribution site. Since than we have sold close to 250 boxes of food, and touched the lives of close to 750 people.

COMMUNITY CLEAN UPOver 20 volunteers participated in a community park clean up in Lowell. The park we cleaned up is center to a small community with a lot of families and is frequented by over 350 people every month.

THE RAMPApproached by one of our members we restored dignity and daily life to a family in Billerica, who’s husband is wheelchair bound after a tragic accident. ONE Love : restore renovated a good half of his house, attached a ramp to it, cleaned and uncluttered, and showed him the love of Jesus. Since then, a neighborhood is experiencing a new kind of love, as relationships are restored and new once build.

RESOURCESWe received furniture, cars, coats, and much more. Using most of these resources, we could bring smiles in peoples lives, bring hope and restore dignity.

CS2010As a pilot project we started The Christmas Surprise, a hand-up Christmas wish list. We hoped to serve 20 Families. We helped 32 families and 90 kids received Christmas gifts. Families filled out wish lists, we bought the gifts with volun-teer shoppers, and families repurchased them from us for 10 cents on the dollar.

LWCPInspired by Jesus’ words to “give banquets for those who can’t repay you”, we hosted an amazing Christmas Party at Living Waters Center of Hope in Lowell. Close to 80 lives were touched.


christines story

“In the years before coming to Grace I had pretty much given up on life. I had never had any direction or motivation so I wandered through life going where the waves of my bad de-cisions took me. I lived this way for so long it just became routine for me. I didn’t know who I was anymore. I couldn’t understand why I had allowed my own life to become so non - existent. I wasn’t happy. I was lost and at times wanted to take my own life. I had finally come to a point when I real-ized this had to stop. This was not my life, there had to be more than this. I had made some changes. I became more aware of the choices I was making and whether they were right or wrong ones, but it wasn’t until a little over 6 years ago when I was dying that my life’s purpose was handed to me. A bliss full event had turned tragic and I found myself at death’s door. That night God had revealed Himself to me in a way I cannot describe. I had been saved from a certain death. From that time on I thought about going back to church again, but I had some trouble accepting what had happened to me both trau-matically and spiritually. I ignored my feelings and desires to have a relationship with God, but after about 3 years of this I could never escape those incredible urges to seek out God. I fought against my feelings of needing God in my life and the harder I fought the Harder God fought for me. Another year had gone by and I decided to no longer deny myself who I really am and where I am needed in the world. I had known about Grace Community from my neighbors so I attended a service here. The first sermon I ever heard was “Hello my name is Jesus”. It may sound strange but as I sat there and listened to Pastor Rob talk I knew this is where I belonged and I had this odd feeling that things were going to get a little crazy. I didn’t understand what was happening within me or even why I felt really overwhelmed by my feelings and I needed to find out what this was all about. Why was I saved and why does God keep on me so fiercely. I sought out the counsel from Pastor Mike so I could learn more about God. What I got back was not only a bet-ter understanding of God and how He works within us but things started happening for me. Through lots of prayer and spiritual counsel I was able to let go of my past and not let it consume me anymore. I was able to surrender myself to God and allow Him to lead my life. Once I did that it was clear to me my path and life’s purpose. I soon realized that God had intended for me to be at this church all along. My personal life had taken a drastic turn and my overall attitude had changed to a positive one. Essentially when it comes down to it, what I prayed for was bestowed upon me.

Several months ago I was asked to attend a strategy meet-ing for an outreach project. I don’t know how I was even considered for such thing but it didn’t matter. I went to that meeting and when I left I realized this was more that a proj-ect. This is a revolution. Just from that very first meeting I knew right away that God lead me here for this specifically. Since that first day coming to Grace Community Church. my life has transformed so much it is unrecognizable to even myself. God put his hand in mine and lead me where I needed to be. It is my given ability to submit to my faith in Him that allows me to trust where he leads me no matter how crazy I think it is. God is far from completing me and it excites me to see where I will be in another year but for today I can take comfort knowing wholeheartedly that my life is on track, I am where I should be and doing what I should be doing. Saying that I’m happy and truly mean it. Knowing I have a support team here at Grace re-gardless of what I do, or who I was, looking out for me be-cause they care, not just about my relationship with God but, about Me. I am left with an amazing gift of Faith in a God that allows me to still be me, just a different kind of me.”


reinventing outreach

ON-LO.ORGSPREADING THE CAUSE

DIANE’S STORY

one love webONE Love needed to be simple and user friendly. To achieve this we started on-lo.org, our very own web page. Users are able to find information about every project and program. We post events, galleries and more. Volunteers are able to cre-ate their own profiles, sign up for volunteer events and much more.

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We established a facebook page andcurrently have 84 fans.

ONE Love is on twitter and we are hoping to reach 100 followers soon.

dianes story

“It was such a good time Friday, I came home so tired just because there were so many people to talk to, and to wel-come them into our home. There where people that don’t al-ways come that were there for the food and party. They still don’t understand why we do what we do for strangers. The food was great, but the love of CHRIST was even bigger than that. When things calmed down I was able to give out the gloves and scarfs. I had such a great time with the women checking out the scarfs to see if it looked good on them or a different color looked better. I had the best Christmas Party I have ever had. Please tell all people that came it was the best. For the first time I have seen with my own eyes what it is like to see Christ at work with love and grace. Don’t get me wrong ,i see Christ at work. But this was soooooooooo different. I was struggling with the no buying thing without money, but Friday has changed my whole outlook.”

DIANE volunteers at Living Waters Center of Hope in Lowell, our Ministry Partner to reach a growinghomeless population in Lowell. This was her email after we hosted the Christmas Party in 2010:


RECAP

RECAPTHE TEAM

2010 Saying “we grew in 2010” is an understatement when it comes to the financial picture. How about an increase in our budget of almost 200%, which allowed us to do many more initiatives as original planned? We are proud to recognize the fact that almost 50% of our support came from individual givers from Grace Community Church in 2010.

2010 recap

IN JUST ONE YEAR, WE’VE ESTABLISHED 17 PROJECTS IN AND AROUND LOWELL AND CHELMSFORD. ALL OF WHICH WERE 100%FUNDED. AND WE’RE JUST GETTING STARTED.

ONE Love financials 2010BudgetSpecial Givings receivedEvent RevenueSpecial offerings receivedRetail revenue

Total

$6300$6324$3421$4755

$225

$21026


THE TEAM


2010 was a year of growth and implementation. Our pro-grams expanded. Our areas of work expanded. Our partner-ships expanded... and our team expanded.

In 2010, ONE love ran on a budget of $6300 - so all our projects, initiatives and programs were completely run with volunteers. We generated an additional $12000 for our proj-ects by activating and engaging our growing volunteer base, and receiving support from others. With plenty of ambition, to-do lists, late nights and coffee runs, we made the most of 2010 from our homes in and around Chelmsford.

A total of 7400 volunteer hours created ONE Love in 2010, and just the leadership alone accounts for almost

3000 of those.

ONE LOVE LEADERS

TOBIAS MARX CHRISTINE BURDICK

RUSS BEAN TODD MEZZANOTTE

Catalyst, Community Devel-oper and Connector

ONE Love Coordinator

Program Coordinatorrestore:

Program CoordinatorAngel Food

one loveon-lo.org

ONE love is our new outreach culture.Our outreach journey, starting right now.

credits go to:articles:

Tobias MarxChristine Burdick

Dianne Fries

Pictures:Tobias Marx

Christine BurdickBrian Henderson

one love 2010 annual review

Documents

love of god

storyone love

small church

local churches

local nightswe

school supplies

school drivewe

jesus christ