NeighborsAmong Us
I’ve probably heard 100 sermons on servanthood in my life—and one-half of them are ones I’ve preached. After all of this preaching about servanthood, I was still left wondering, How do people get moved to actually serve?

This past year, our church, Menlo Park Presbyterian Church (MPPC), did a monthlong series based on Richard Foster’s book, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christian Faith (Harper SanFrancisco). In his chapter titled “The Social Justice Tradition: Discovering the Compassionate Life,” Foster explores a question posed by Christ: “Who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29): “A neighbor is a person near us, a person in need; one whose ethnic background and social status are irrelevant to their true self and our relationship to them.” This struck a chord with our leadership team.

The congregation of MPPC is no stranger to serving its community and the world. It’s a missional, globally aware place. But it’s also filled with busy people inundated with demands on them. So how could the call to servanthood be something more than just one added demand? We started praying about this. Then we got a crazy idea: What if we cancelled our regular worship services, shut down all church programs for a weekend, and invited everyone to worship God through service in the community? Compassion Weekend was born.

The Planning Phase—Ideas in Motion
The decision to move forward with Compassion Weekend had been made and the church elders had approved the direction. The proverbial train had left the station. Now what? We were excited and apprehensive at the same time. The idea we had set in motion was huge, complicated, and risky. Nothing on this scale had ever been attempted in Menlo Park. It could either turn out to be a fantastic success or one whopper of a failure. We started praying even more. We sought God’s guidance, wisdom, providence, and protection. Again, Richard Foster’s words from Streams of Living Water rang true: “In prayer, we wait in the power of God for the evil to dissipate and the good to rise up. By prayer, we receive spiritual enabling.”

This “spiritual enabling” fell into place through a select group of church staff members and lay leaders. The Compassion Weekend project team (CW team) began meeting in the months preceding the big weekend. Their charge was to identify service projects and key personnel, and to establish the myriad relationships required for each component.
In the discernment of opportunities to serve, the CW team was driven by four core principles:

1) Service projects must address actual needs,

2) There must be ample opportunities for broad-scale volunteer involvement,

3) Those doing the serving actively engage with those being served, and,

4) There must be opportunities for long-term support and involvement.

The CW team decided to focus on three main project areas: Education, Humanity (social issues), and HIV-AIDS. Smaller subteams were formed around each of these areas. They developed partner relationships, selected project types and work sites, ordered materials, and planned program presentations.

Concurrently, our internal crew went about the task of coordinating registration and communications specifics, and the complicated job of transforming our campus into a “convention center” venue.

During this planning time, comments around the church ranged from, “It’ll never work” to “Hey, it just might work,” to “Holy cow, it’s working!” Along the way, every department and ministry contributed ideas and resources. To see this increased level of collaboration, particularly among our staff, was an unexpected and happy surprise. This large, diverse group was being transformed from a collection of employees and volunteers into a team.

The Assignment Phase—Game Plan for Servanthood
Education Projects—For this component, our CW Education Team found unlikely allies in organizations typically off limits to religious groups—public schools. Many elementary and middle schools within minutes of our campus were vastly under-resourced or in need of physical renovation. We developed plans to build and distribute thousands of student and teacher resource kits to an entire school district, and to do extensive campus refurbishment for a private school that targets students from financially challenged families.

At the high school level, new exit exam regulations had put many students’ graduation hopes in jeopardy. Those particularly at risk were multilingual and special needs students. Two of our church members happened to be on staff at high schools where this issue was prevalent. They worked to develop curricula through which volunteers could tutor at-risk students on specific areas of the exit exam.

Humanity Projects—The CW Humanity Team went out in search of opportunities to help improve living conditions and quality of life. During the winter/spring of 2006, Peninsula Habitat for Humanity was in the process of building dozens of homes for low-income families in the Bay Area. Plans were set in place to deploy hundreds of volunteers to help with this construction. We also partnered with a group called SpiritCare Ministry to Seniors to have volunteers from our church visit hundreds of people who feel isolated and forgotten.

HIV-AIDS Projects—Prior to the Compassion Weekend effort, we had a team of leaders who were already working on AIDS ministries. A shared passion to help those suffering from AIDS had led members of this team to many nations in previous years. Strong relationships had been established with Bay Area AIDS care facilities and with WorldVision, a global humanitarian aid organization.
We chose two AIDS projects for Compassion Weekend. The first would send small field teams to local AIDS facilities to work with patients and their caregivers. This would be, for many MPPC folks, a pretty raw experience. WorldVision’s partnership and expertise came into play for the second initiative. In previous months, they’d developed a specialized AIDS caregiver kit. These kits help prevent the spread of the HIV-AIDS virus and improve the quality of life for many patients. Prior to Compassion Weekend, WorldVision had distributed these kits to Africa in batches of 100 to 200. “What if,” proposed our team, “we used our congregation to build thousands of kits for African caregivers?” The logistics alone for such an endeavor would be enormous, but the team rose to the challenge.

Compassion Weekend Approaches—The Storm Before the Calm
The weeks leading up to Compassion Weekend were filled with excitement, work, and rain. A lot of all three. We specifically scheduled Compassion Weekend for April because it never rains in California then. Never. Except this April it did. Rain shut down the primary Habitat for Humanity worksite in Brisbane before foundations could even be poured. Heavy snow in the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountain ranges had put the timely delivery of supplies for AIDS caregiver kits in jeopardy. All of our outdoor service events were in question.

During this time we also waited. Waited to see if the congregation would catch the same fire that already burned within leadership. We had challenged our entire congregation to take part in the weekend, and hoped for 2,000 to 3,000 participants. In the first weekend for signing up, 300 people registered. Over the course of the next week, 300 more. Each week, the number increased, ultimately reaching 2,800 volunteers. We were on our way.

Incoming!
Friday, March 31, was delivery day: school supplies, building materials, food, signage, 500 pounds of sand for a school sandbox—and enough ingredients to build more than 7,000 AIDS caregiver kits. Our parking lot looked like a truck stop.

A small army of staff and volunteers had assembled for delivery day. Our sanctuary and satellite locations were set up for project pre-briefings. Other large rooms were transformed into staging areas and assembly lines.

Day 1—Here We Are, Lord, Send Us
Saturday, April 1. Compassion Weekend had begun. We’d never witnessed such eagerness, cooperation, gratitude, and joy on this scale. To get the full CW experience, our team of pastors jumped from site to site. Each location brought something new, yet equally incredible. On our main campus, the AIDS caregiver kit assembly line was in full swing. Work shifts of 100 people or more were stationed at various work areas, each with a specific job to do. A beehive of activity, yet highly efficient. Too efficient as a matter of fact. They were working too fast. Workloads needed to be scaled down to keep enough material available for later crews to assemble. Despite their excitement, project co-leaders shook their heads and lamented as they watched, “We should have ordered more supplies. We could have built more kits. Many, many more.”

In one corridor, a spry 80-year-old in a Marine Corps cap barked friendly orders to a chain of men half his age loading kits onto a pallet. “Keep ‘em coming boys, faster now!” A group of young boys gathered together, in search of an area to work in the crowded hall. Finding nothing, they did what kids do, sat on the ground in a circle and got to work. In any other situation they would have been asked to move. Not this day. Instead, the assembly line simply snaked its way around the little circle on the ground.

A few miles away, renovation work had begun at the Beechwood School. Volunteers on this site included church folks and members of the school community, parents, students, teachers, and staff. Work ranged from painting fences to the construction of a new outdoor arbor and lunch area. Kids got into the action alongside adults, making a contribution wherever they could. “I can’t believe all these people have come to help clean up our school,” one mother remarked. “I didn’t think anyone besides us cared about how this place looked.” Similar sentiments would be repeated throughout the weekend.

On the other side of town, another big assembly line of workers put together more than 5,000 teacher and student resource kits. These kits were composed of basic school supplies that had become scarce in the classroom. On kit boxes, young children drew pictures and scrawled messages. A three-year-old hand wrote “God Loves You” with a fat marker.

At a SpiritCare facility, a young boy looked up at his father and sulked, “I don’t want to go spend time with a bunch of old people, dad.” Dad insisted. Four hours and many new experiences later, the boy announced, “That was fun! Can we go back again?”

Day 2—Hard Hats and Prayer Cards
Sunday, April 2. The energy created by the previous day’s activities spilled over to day two. On the MPPC campus, one semi truck trailer full of caregiver kits had already hit the road, and the other was being loaded. As the final pieces were lifted in, a large group of people gathered around the back of the truck to pray for the journey of the kits and for those who would soon receive them. They prayed for healing and a cure; for tolerance and understanding; and that the recipients would experience the hope and grace of God. In each kit had been placed a handwritten prayer card that echoed these sentiments. Princess Zulu, WorldVision’s representative from the country of Zambia would later tell us, “The prayer cards are perhaps the most important piece of the entire kit. You see, it’s very rare for these people to ever receive a single word of encouragement, much less a message of love. These cards will very likely be passed from generation to generation as a treasured heirloom of hope. You’ve done much good today, you have no idea how much!”

The next stop was the Habitat for Humanity build site in Daly City. A busload of volunteers had just begun a full day of hard work and heavy lifting. Four homes were being completed. Dusty workers in hard hats painted walls, drove stakes into the ground, laid tile, and installed light switches and many other fixtures. A member of our worship team, a small woman who plays the flute like an angel, wielded a pick ax like a samurai warrior. Big, burly men watched in amazement. “I never would have thought I’d be involved with anything like this in a million years,” she laughed. “This is just so cool!”

Nearby, a member of one of the families who would soon call this building site home hoisted a sheet of drywall up to another worker on the second floor. A man in his early 40s, he had never owned his own home. His large, close-knit family had never shared a meal at a proper dinner table. And here he was, helping to build his beautiful home, along with 200 of his closest friends. “All these people helping to build our house, it’s unbelievable,” he said in a thick accent. “You all must come visit us when the house is done. You are family now.”

In contrast to the raging buzz saws and jackhammers of the Habitat construction site, the atmosphere at Sequoia High School was hushed. Huddled around desks in multiple classrooms, students sat with their tutors. (Remarkably, we ended up with exactly the same number of students and tutors.) Each pair worked quietly and intently on the task at hand. In planning for this portion of the weekend, we had wondered how the students would respond. It was a Sunday. Who in their right mind comes to school to study for a test on a Sunday? But they came, prodded by a free lunch and other perks. And they stayed, all day long, buoyed by love and attention.

Many of the volunteers were so moved by the experience that they arranged for follow-up sessions with “their” students, on their own time. (An offer that was never turned down.) As the day drew to a close, they presented cards of encouragement to the students. “I saw this happening and thought for sure the kids would toss the cards when out of sight,” said the school’s vice principal. “Instead, every one of them crept off to a private corner or desk, read their cards one or two times, and slipped them into their backpacks. To see people love on these kids the way they did today was amazing. I love this church!”

We ended the weekend with worship. These services were parties. People came in their grubbies, rumpled and weary, yet crackling with energy. They clumped in the aisles to share their stories with friends and visitors alike. No better way to close out an unbelievable weekend—with honor and gratitude to the One we serve.

Oh, and the rain? It had stopped. But just long enough for all activity to cease before the clouds opened up again. For this, we were thankful. Of the few concerns voiced about Compassion Weekend, one was that church finances would be adversely affected without the income received through “regular” worship offerings. We did receive offerings during the CW evening services, yet they were lower than normal. Two weeks later, however, we dedicated the majority of our special Easter offering to pay for the many Compassion Weekend projects. This was in addition to our regular offering, meaning that the congregation would need to give in excess. On Easter Sunday evening, I received any urgent voice mail from the church’s business manager. “There’s a problem with the offering,” he said. I called back, expecting the worst. The “problem” was that the offering was too large to be contained in our safe. We needed to make an immediate deposit. Both offerings had surpassed expectations. The special Easter gifts alone exceeded our budgeted CW expenses by over 40 percent! God had touched the hearts of our congregation with compassion and servanthood. Excess CW offerings were given to additional mission projects in 2006, and will be used as seed money for Compassion Weekend 2007.

COMPASSION CONTINUES
In the weeks and months following Compassion Weekend, stories keep flowing. One group attended the Sequoia High School graduation ceremony to celebrate with the students they’d helped reach that milestone. Another traveled back to Daly City for the Habitat for Humanity dedication ceremony with housewarming gifts for the new homeowners. Other reunions took place through letters, emails, and prayers.

In the end we came back around to the question we’d wrestled with months earlier, “Who is my neighbor?” By pouring the church into our community in the name of Christ, we found out who our neighbors were. And they’ve become our friends.

JOHN ORTBERG is teaching pastor at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in Menlo Park, California. He’s the bestselling author of several books, including his most recent, God Is Closer Than You Think (Zondervan). JULIE GAVRILIS is the communications director at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church.