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They will know we are Christians by our
For just as the body without the
spirit is dead,
so faith without works is also dead.
James 2:26 |
Venice-Nokomis United Methodist
Church is committed to helping our
neighbors
and
caring for our world. We want to help improve the
quality
of life for people in
need and to
bring the good news of God’s hope and
healing to them.
We honor
our commitment by
sharing God’s love daily
through different local,
national, and
international mission
opportunities.
Faith-Promise Offering
Our Faith-Promise Offering is a PROMISE we make at the
beginning of
each year
as a congregation to support
different mission projects based
on FAITH that the
funds
will be provided through our loose coin offering.
Each
week, all loose coins
in the Sunday offering
plate are put into the
Faith-Promise Mission Fund. This
fund
has supported the following missions:
The Upper
Room, Society of St. Andrew,
African Children with Aids
Virus,
Tampa United Methodist Centers, The United
Methodist
Children’s Home,
Venice Area Ministerial Association
Venice Chapter
of Habitat for Humanity
Homeless & Orphan
Outreach Center (HOOI), Key West
United Methodist
Community Center, Christmas
in the Park by Gifts from God
Ministries. |
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South County Food Pantry
On a weekly basis, we collect non-perishable, unopened
items for the South
County
Food Pantry. Donation containers are located in the
Narthex and
Fellowship Hall for
the congregation to
place their items. You may also drop
off any items
during the
week at the Church Office. |
Missionaries
Since 1991, VNUMC has contributed annually towards the
salary for Dale and
Lee
Williams
who are missionaries in Tanzania. We also support the
Campus
Crusades
for the Stiff family, who are
missionaries in Russia, James & Sejia
Terry missionaries
in Central Asia, and a
nurse tutor in Zimbawbe. |
Crop Walk
Since the early 1980’s VNUMC has annually participated
in the national “Crop
Walk”
campaign with other churches in the community to raise
money to fight
against hunger
and starvation. Walkers are asked to get pledges for
each mile
walked. The word
“crop”
is the name given to community wide hunger education
and
fundraising events sponsored
by Church World Service.
CROPWALKERS WALK to help families receive food
and shelter as they
rebuild their
homes and lives, to help communities have wells that
provide safe,
clean drinking water
close to home, to provide food for local emergency food
programs throughout the United
States, and because millions of people around
the world
walk everyday for food, shelter,
water and survival.
Our community receives 25% of the funds raised at the
Venice Crop Walk to
support
the outreach feeding programs of the Salvation Army,
South County
Food Pantry, Meals
of Wheels, and the Venice Area Ministerial Association.
For more information on the
Crop Walk Organization, please call 1-800-456-1310
or
visit their official web site at:
http://www.cropwalk.org.
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Heifer Project International
Since 2001, our Church has been
involved with a special and highly successful
mission
project with Heifer Project International (HPI) which is
a non-profit
organization that works
to alleviate hunger, poverty, and environmental
degradation.
HPI helps impoverished
families become self-reliant by providing food and
income-producing animals and training
in the care of those animals. Over 4
million families in
118 countries have been helped
by HPI. A unique aspect of
this project is each family
that receives an animal must give
one or more of
their animal’s offspring to another
family in need. |
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Most people give an individual
animal or a flock of a particular animal. Individuals,
or
an organization may also purchase a Gift Ark. Each Ark
gives 30 hungry
families a new
beginning - a life with the promise to eat - a life of
self-reliance.
Venice-Nokomis United Methodist Church
has given over two Gift Ark’s that
included chicks,
sheep, rabbits,
beehives, llamas, goats, ducks, donkeys, pigs,
geese,
camels, oxen, water buffalo
and cows. Prices for the animals range from
$10.00 to
$1000.00. The painting shown
above was a Gift Ark Award given to
our Church by HPI
for fighting hunger two-by-two.
For more information about
Heifer Project International,
please call 1-800-422-0474 or
visit their official
web at:
http://www.heifer.org.
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Refugee Sponsors
One of our most rewarding outreach programs was the
decision to sponsor a
refugee Vietnamese family in 1975.
In return, the head of this family accepted
our offer of
a job
as custodian of the church property and he still holds
this
position today. |
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Disaster Relief Efforts
We regularly collect “Flood Buckets” which are
distributed to recent hurricane,
flood,
and
other natural disaster victims to help restore their
property, homes
and livelihood.
In the
summer of 2004, many communities close to us were
devastated by four major hurricanes. VNUMC became a
distribution center
for donations to help the victims
rebuild their lives.
We are helping financially
to help the hurricane victims
to rebuild their damaged roofs. We participate in
Blanket Sunday, which helps to purchase blankets for
refugees worldwide.
A special offering is collected on World Communion
Sunday to
provide ethnic
minority scholarships. We also
respond to special appeals and actively
participate in
several
Florida United Methodist outreach projects. |
Mission Trip
In July of 2006,
members of our congregation and Youth Group drove to
Dulac, Louisiana, to offer Vacation Bible School to
those in the community
who suffered loss during Hurricane Katrina. |
Soup Labels & Box Tops
Educational Program
VNUMC is an active supporter of the Campbell’s Soup
labels and General
Mills Box
Tops programs. Our efforts
have enabled our Child Care Center
to buy new playground
equipment
and help the Tampa United Methodist
Center to purchase a
special computer
used to teach math to students
with
learning disabilities. |
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Bible verses from
Matthew 25:35-36 (NKJV) |
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