We are excited to kick off Jesus Week’s second JOY TO THE CITY outreach!
Joy to the City 2022!
Last year we were blessed with an amazing windfall of 40,000 Christmas gifts and 100,000 Christmas children’s booklets from One Hope: “The Promised One.” We are so grateful for each of you that picked up these blessings and threw 125 Christmas parties for vulnerable communities all over the NY and Philly Metros!
This year we have Christmas outreach books for children, teens, tweens and Gospels of John in beautiful Christmas Red. We also want to encourage you to share the gift of the GodsLove.app to find several free worship albums, thousands of inspirational videos, literacy assistance, crisis hotlines and practical assistance nearby.
We are encouraging the Jesus Week Team to find Tenant Associations in public housing communities, Principals in under-resourced schools and Homeless shelters for families. Ask them if you could help them throw a Christmas party for their community. Let’s build community healing teams together throughout our city.
Bake cookies, make hot chocolate, decorate, bring a sound system, have a toy or warm clothing drive and pick up as many outreach books and tracts as you like from us to pack gift bags for a party or your neighborhood.
These are difficult times, let’s bring good news of great joy to our neighborhoods. Let’s fill the earth with the knowledge of Jesus, as the waters fill the seas.
We are still trying to procure toys! Whatever comes in will be made available to those who register on a first come/first serve basis.
The goal of Jesus Week is to saturate and transform cities through neighborhood, school, Public Housing, and immigrant group adoption. Here are a few suggestions for using Jesus Week Christmas resources to engage your neighborhoods and create new community partners.
- Christmas Caroling/neighborhood Christmas service invitation: Go door to door giving out a little bag of Jesus Week outreach books with church invitations. Add in some candy canes, microwave popcorn, homemade cookies…etc. Sing and pray for your neighbors. We have boxes of 500 Christmas tracts that are 8.5×14 reams, so that you can print your church information and distribute them throughout your community.
2. Public Housing Party: Reach out to the Tenant Association of a Public Housing Community and ask them if they are planning to (or if you could help them) throw a Christmas party for their families. Sometimes a local nonprofit will provide gifts but help with volunteers is desperately needed.
a) Offer to help by baking cookies, bringing hot chocolate, a sound system, decorating…etc.
b) Create a gift bag to distribute at the party.
c) Maybe your choir or worship team can sing some carols.
d) Start a Christmas Children’s Choir in the community who can perform at the party.
e) Ask your church and other churches to help you with a toy and warm clothing drive.
3. Immigrant Outreach: Thousands of new neighbors are daily arriving in our city from South America. We have hundreds of thousands of books in Spanish available to minister to them. Churches all over the city are adopting shelters to provide support to the asylees.
a) Consider adopting a shelter or coming alongside a church that is doing.
b) Facilitate a toy/warm clothing drive.
c) Throw a small Christmas party.Bring Spanish, Christmas Gospel resources, hot chocolate, cookies…and the love of Jesus.
4. School Outreach: Consider reaching out to local principals or Parent Coordinators to see how you could bless the children in the school this Christmas season. Some principals will allow you to provide a table of gift bags from your church. Either way, building relationships with local principals and school leaders is critical for community transformation.