Outreach commitments are a high priority for our congregation at First United Presbyterian Church. Individual members commit to life-long active service and join together to extend their reach beyond what an individual can achieve. Far beyond the corner of Calvin and Knox, our mission extends God’s love and compassion around our community, the Presbytery of Arkansas, the U.S.A., and the world. The Outreach and Service Committee supports the many efforts of individual members and determines how our Outreach and Service Budget is spent.
Our legacy is firmly grounded in outreach and service. Individual members through the years have been instrumental in helping to found or direct important community outreach organizations in Northwest Arkansas, such as Butterfield Trail Village, Cooperative Emergency Outreach, Life Styles, Single Parent Scholarship Fund, local chapters of Habitat for Humanity, and First School.
Hands-on service
We stress hands-on involvement and becoming personally involved in serving as Christ’s hands and heart in the world. These practical involvements sustain and uplift members who undertake them and encourage the whole church family.
- Several members help out by purchasing and sorting needed food and supplies or interviewing patrons at the food bank of Fayetteville’s Cooperative Emergency Outreach.
- Others may plan, prepare, or deliver a lunch meal for 100 patrons of Fayetteville’s Seven Hills Homeless Shelter.
- Packing hygiene kits for Presbyterian Disaster Assistance has become an annual all-church mission project.
- Our youth have the opportunity each summer to go on a mission trip. In recent years, they have been to Memphis, TN and Colorado Springs, CO.
- Every year, members of our congregation participate in the Presbytery of Arkansas Spring Break Mission Trip to Honduras.
We are working on new ways of organizing “hands on” service and outreach in order to make it more feasible for a larger percentage of our congregation.
It’s the goal of the Outreach & Service Committee that all members find a way to donate their time and talents to the community. We have many possibilities and opportunities for everyone.
Global Outreach
We have also set a goal of supporting a longer-term involvement with one global outreach effort that can become a sustained relationship of mutual support over a number of years. Our ministry with the Presbytery of Honduras began over ten years ago. On recent trips participants have helped to ready Villa de Gracia to be a place for mission workers to find respite and they have partnered with others to help rebuild Bethel Presbyterian Church of Guimaca. Scholarships for children to continue their education past the 6th grade, when tuition is required, and Spanish language children’s Bibles are also part of our ministry in Honduras.
Financial Support
Financial support from First United Presbyterian Church continues to embrace local, regional and world-wide outreach efforts, in cooperation with the national PC(USA), the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.
We encourage members to give to the PC(USA) special offerings and to support the efforts of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA). As a church, we support the Theological Education Fund of the PC(USA).
We have a large campus and allow several non-profit groups (e.g. Alcoholics Anonymous, Gamblers Anonymous) to use it as meeting space.
