Engaging Our Communities With Love: The Vineyard Church Mahomet

Leah Wenger is the site pastor for the Mahomet Campus the Vineyard Church in central Illinois. Their young campus is deeply involved in summer outreach – here’s a report.

Loving Our Community Practically

We feel honored that we have the opportunity to love and serve our community in practical ways. Our church is made up of lots of young families, so we tend to aim a lot of our outreach in that direction. We also want to partner with what the community is already doing.

Our community has a fourth of July celebration called Freedomfest, so we went there and set up tons of free kids games and prizes for families who are waiting for the fireworks. There were lots of opportunities to talk with parents while their kids are playing games. Then we go back in on July 5th and clean up all of the trash at the park.

We also serve at our local music festival – setting up a booth with free face painting, tattoos and balloon animals. This gives us an opportunity to really connect with parents while they are waiting. 

We get to pray for many people and make relational connections as well. There’s a parade, and we walk at the end to clean up all of the trash. This simple act of service is actually one of the most effective outreaches we do.

Partnering With The Community

Throughout the rest of the summer weather we host free car washes, free family movie nights, and a summer lunch program where we serve hot meals to those kids in our communities that typically receive free lunch while in school. 

Coming into the fall, we love to partner with the schools in any way we can. Part of that is collecting an offering that we donate directly to the social workers to use as needed throughout the year.

We love to serve in practical ways and partner with what our community is already doing. Jesus is love, and we want everyone in our community to know His love!

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Visit The Vineyard Church Mahomet here.

Vineyard USA Day of Giving

On August 4th, 2024 Vineyard USA will be launching our first annual Day of Giving titled Seed & Soil: Celebrating 50 Years of the Vineyard. In this unique moment in our history, we want to celebrate all God has done in and through the Vineyard. We invite you to give and support the work of local churches across the country.