From Dr. Greg:
First, a little history. 10 years ago in Little Rock, Arkansas, some churches put together a day of service for their community. It has blossomed into 100 (!) churches dedicating a weekend each year to serving the community (and suburbs) of Little Rock. It is a huge success and makes the gospel powerful on many levels where heretofore it had not been. Accordingly, that paradigm has now cropped up in 44 other cities around the country, including Jackson.
A group of pastors organized a couple of years ago in Jackson under the umbrella called Transformation Jackson. All of us in central Mississippi share in the hope that the prevailing culture of Jackson (and suburbs) would be more positive and family friendly and that the quality of life would increase substantially. That group of pastors went to Little Rock and came back with an idea last year called Shine ’09. It involved a number of service projects in Jackson and it is being repeated and expanded this year to more churches and the suburbs. We expect it to be an annual event here also.
For Shine 2010, Morrison Heights is involved, hopefully in a big way. Saturday, March 6, is the day set aside throughout the area for our collective efforts. Mark Sandifer has talked to our civic leaders and identified 4 projects. They are:
- Clean up along Mt. Salus Road beginning at our back gate.
- Cleaning the vinyl fence at Traceway Park.
- Landscaping at Robinson Park on W. Northside Drive.
- Refinishing doors and benches at the Clinton Visitor’s Center.
The goal of all of these projects is to show our concern for our community and to “earn the right to be heard”. All of us care about the progress and health of our community and about the gospel advance in our community in particular. So, we are getting together on March 6 from 8-11:30 a.m. Join us if you can.
As for me and my house, I dig landscaping (pun!) so I am gonna tackle project #1. I am writing to:
- Make you aware of the opportunity
- Invite you to join
- Encourage you to bring whatever tools or friends you can along with you. (At minimum, we need shovels, rakes, chain saws, pickups, trailers, etc. Feel free to drive around back there and decide for yourself what you might like to bring. I think about 3-5 backpack blowers would be helpful also.)
There is a lot of trash, a lot of fallen leaves and limbs, bad drainage, some undergrowth to be removed. Hey, we could even use a boxblade on a tractor.
We have embraced all 4 projects so we don’t all need to work on Mt. Salus road. However, time permitting, I hope you can join with us and let’s make some great memories together and help our neighbors and community.
Greg
