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Two ministries facilitate the primary mission emphasis at Northside Presbyterian Church, the Mission Ministry and the Witness Ministry. The Mission Ministry involves members and friends in local and world-wide activities through several programs.
The Ministry works with Bridge Refugee Services to periodically sponsor immigrant refugees. Recent families have come from Viet Nam and Sudan. While the Bridge program works for a reasonably short introductory transition of the refugee family into our American culture, we find some families require more time. We help them obtain the most fundamental and necessary things that we often take for granted; transportation to jobs, assistance in learning to drive a car, reading and understanding the license examination questions, furniture and housing, and being a shoulder that they can lean on when this new world presses too hard.
The ministry supports three missionaries in Brazil, Madagascar, and Zimbabwe through monetary gifts and prayerful support. This mission activity was carried to Northside through our member-friends from Central Presbyterian Church, for which we are ever grateful.
The Mission Ministry is responsible to support the T. S. McCallie Fund, a fund created by Central Presbyterian Church that supports church members in distress, counseling services on behalf of the Bachman Learning Center and the Presbyterian Campus Ministry of the University of Tennessee (Presbyterian House) and anyone the fund administrators determine to be eligible.
The Mission Ministry is launching a new mission emphasis that is still unfolding, support for church development and human support on Chattanooga’s Westside. Our Westside presents many challenges. There is virtually no privately owned housing and Renaissance Presbyterian Church sits in the midst of the Westside. We are working with the Renaissance Church and its unfailing minister, the Rev. Mark Downs, to find the right way to bring a supporting hand and message that we are all God’s children in this struggle for a better world.
Northside began the now stand-alone organization Northside Neighborhood House decades ago to address the needs of people on the Northside that are in need. Some of these needs are after-school children’s programs, help with overwhelming utility bills and a thrift shop for inexpensive necessary house and home items. Northside Presbyterian continues to provide financial support, and many members have severed on the Board of Directors of the Neighborhood House.
The Mission Ministry also has worked and participated with the Interfaith Hospitality Network, an effort that in the past has provided support for many families to find the way out of a short term crisis of loss of spouse, home or job, or both.
The Mission Ministry also supports mission trips from time to time, such as trips to the Gulf Coast to help rebuilding in the aftermath of Katrina and youth mission trips. To view the blog from Pearlington, MS please click here.
New ideas for mission emphasis are always welcome.
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