national and international outreach
- One Great Hour: Since 1949, Presbyterians have joined with millions of other Christians through One Great Hour of Sharing to share God’s love with people experiencing need. Our gifts support ministries of disaster response, refugee assistance and resettlement, and community development that help people find safe refuge, start new lives and work together to strengthen their families and communities. Recognizing that the hope we have in Christ is lived out in our hope for one another, we respond with gifts that help our sisters and brothers around the world find the hope for a brighter future. The Presbyterian Hunger Program receives 36 percent of undesignated One Great Hour of Sharing gifts, while the Self-Development of People and Presbyterian Disaster Assistance each receive 32 percent. Most congregations receive the offering on Easter Sunday. Palm Sunday or both, while many receive it throughout Lent.
- The Presbyterian Hunger Program (PHP) works to feed hungry people and end hunger in our community, our nation, and our world through raising awareness, providing opportunities for response, and reaching out to those in need. It addresses hunger and its causes in five program areas outlined in the Common Affirmation on Global Hunger: Direct Food Relief, Influencing Public Policy, Education and Interpretation, Development Assistance and Life-style Integrity
- Self-Development of People is a ministry that affirms God’s concern for humankind. We are Presbyterians and ecumenical partners dissatisfied with poverty and oppression, united in faith and action though sharing, confronting, and enabling. We participate in the empowerment of economically poor, oppressed, and disadvantaged people, seeking to change the structures that perpetuate poverty, oppression and injustice.
- Presbyterian Disaster Assistance enables congregations and mission partners of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to witness to the healing love of Christ through caring for communities adversely affected by crisis and catastrophic events. Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA) is the emergency and refugee program of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. The core budget, including staff and administrative cost, is funded through the One Great Hour of Sharing, and its program work is additionally funded through designated gifts. Focuses on the long term recovery of disaster impacted communities and provides training and disaster preparedness for presbyteries and synods.
- Twice a year members of Southminster Presbyterian Church travel to Black Mountain Home For Children to help spread the Love of Jesus Christ with the Children at the home. Our members travel to the home during the summer to hold a Vacation Bible School with our youth and the kids at the home and during Christmas, we provide a Christmas party complete with Fun, Food, Fellowship and presents for each of the kids at the home. The consistent visits have made lasting relationships between Southminster Presbyterian Church members and the children at Black Mountain Home.
- Rebirth St. Louis: Member Anne Neal Brown’s daughter, Kristin Fast and her husband Shane, live in East St. Louis and run an Urban Ministry. God has called them to build a life and a family while they minister to inner-city youth.
- Southminster Presbyterian Church works with Samaritans Purse by packing shoe boxes each year for the less fortunate children of the world thru Operation Christmas Child and by going to Charlotte to help in the packing and delivery of the shoe boxes from around our nation to these children.
- Guatemalan Ministry: Southminster was partnered with Camino de Santidad by the Presbytery of Western North Carolina. Many PCUSA churches in our area have a sister church in Guatemala. Our brothers and sisters lost their jobs and have been forced to move off the farm where they lived and worked. With Southminster’s help they now have a new community and a new church building. Their needs now are electrical power and a pump to supply water.
- Guatemalan Scholarships: Southminster provides scholarships for 26 children in the Camino de Santidad community. Not all are from the church family and we try for a balance between boys and girls. Parents do not have to send their kids to school in Guatemala. These scholarships provide tuition to good schools, uniforms, and backpacks. This is a life changing blessing for these children. Amanda Craft was appointed in January of 2009 to serve with the IENPG (the National Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Guatemala) in the area of women’s leadership development.
