What is Compassion Weekend?

The congregation of Faith Presbyterian Church 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 one added demand?

A group at Faith started praying about this and, with inspiration from Menlo Park Presbyterian Church, 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! On April 19 and 20, 2008,

Faith Church members and volunteers from all over the city participated in an awesome time of Christian Service to our community, where folks of all ages joined together in service activities that were chosen by our congregation.

In choosing our service projects, we followed these core principles:

• The service projects must address actual needs
• There must be ample opportunity for broad scale volunteer involvement
• Those doing the serving actively engage with those being served There must be activities for all age groups
• There must be opportunities for long-term support and involvement

“Don’t just go to church…be the church” is the message that Faith is trying to spread. While it’s important to go into our building to worship, it’s just as important to be the church, meaning out of the church building, serving the community. After all, James 1:27 states, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress…”

While our efforts will be initially concentrated on one weekend, it’s important that people realize that Faith Presbyterian Church is in the community, for the community, 365 days of the year.

Compassion Weekend is April 26-28, 2013

See list of projects that still need volunteers: Compassion Weekend 2013