This is Reach Out

Reach Out

Reach Out is about being church beyond the church. The purpose of Reach Out is to enable everyone within the Vineyard to serve and bless others, especially the forgotten, the sick, the lost and the poor, in every conceivable way, solely for the purposes of the Kingdom of God. Reach Out includes a huge range of activities initiated by housegroups and others.

This last financial year 15% of the church’s income went to Reach Out. (i.e. for people outside of Wharfedale Vineyard). There are over a dozen projects, some close at home, many overseas, in which we are involved and which we support with people, prayer, resources and money. There is much more to do and we foresee overseas mission - Other People Other Places (OPOP) becoming a more and more significant part of what we are called to.

Lots of our Reach Out activities emerge from the housegroups and we have observed a pattern ‘Pioneer, Simplify, Replicate’, where things get started, and eventually we find the idea getting copied all over the place. Bringing some of these together, we plan to develop a seasonal strategy for Acts of Kindness (AoK) projects so that there is something happening on a regular basis in which everyone can get involved.

A developing theme is that of ‘blurring the edges’ - such that the projects become more and more part of what our community of faith is and does. The compassionate motivation for Reaching Out often develops after you get started. Joining in with organized activities helps create constructive habits of doing good to people until it comes naturally. Reaching Out is not really an "opt out" activity. It is core to what happens when we follow Jesus so we want to encourage everyone and make it as easy as possible for everyone to get involved. If you would like to know more please talk to Alex and Karen Griffin.