Mercy Ministries, Mercy Update | by Pastor Justin Keogh

The Mercy Ministry Updates are a regular snapshot of our Mercy Ministries in DCC, where we are working to serve and uphold the value and dignity of God’s most vulnerable image bearers in our city. For more regular updates in each focus area, please request to join our Mercy Focus groups in Church Center (linked below).

Gospel Framework

The Bible, as God’s inspired word, displays God’s good design and our radical need for a savior, found only in Jesus, and calls us to live out our new identity in Christ as we engage the world around us.

“Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of wickedness,
to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up speedily;
your righteousness shall go before you;
the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard."
– Isaiah 58:6-8

In this passage in Isaiah, God is rebuking the people of Israel for their platitudes of worship. They had been fasting and "going through the religious motions" without a heart set on God nor a life lived according to his instructions.

Israel was God's chosen people—chosen not because of their works but because of God's grace—and God gave them a clear picture of how he wanted them to live as a shining example among the nations, which was characterized by their worship of God (celebration of their vertical reconciliation with God) as well as their care for their neighbors (a demonstration of love in their horizontal relationships).

Jesus, when asked about the greatest commandment, replied similarly, saying that the first thing we must do is to love God with our whole being, and the second thing, inextricably linked, is to love our neighbor as ourselves (cf. Matt 22:34-40). We too, as God's adopted sons and daughters, freely given grace upon grace, are called to love others, even our enemies, in word and deed, as an overflow and reflection of God's love for us in Christ.

MERCY MINISTRY TRAINING: This Sunday, January 17th @ 1PM

Scripture is full of imperatives for us to serve others—not to earn God’s love, but in response to God’s lavish and gracious love for us. But how exactly are we to go about serving those around us in our city? With so much need, where do we start? How can we serve in this challenging Covid season?

In this training, we’ll look at the imperatives in Scripture to serve others as a response to God’s love for us in Christ. We'll introduce our current mercy ministries, discuss ways to serve and pray for those most vulnerable in our city.

If you’ve not had a chance to connect to our Mercy Ministries yet, or perhaps want to learn more about how we’re serving in this challenging season, this training is for you! This will be a live, virtual session, so please register below.

Register

CARENET FUNDRAISER: Through Saturday, January 23rd

This year, coinciding with our annual focus on the sanctity of human life, we are hosting a fundraiser to support our pro-life partner Care Net of Puget Sound—to help assist with the essential needs and services they provide to women facing unplanned pregnancies. Contributing to Care Net helps them operate their many services, from ultrasounds and STD screenings, to prenatal and parenting classes (and much more!)—to anyone who needs them, free of charge.

Our prayerful hope is to be a tangible blessing to Care Net through this fundraiser, helping them as they seek to help women facing unplanned pregnancy choose life for their babies.

Donate

All contributions are tax-deductible, and Care Net will receive 100% of your donation, less any processing fees (if applicable). Please select CareNet Fundraiser as the fund when you donate. A gift acknowledgment will be included in your year-end giving statement.

Stay Connected

Learn more about our Mercy Ministries HERE. Join the focus area city groups in order to hear more regular updates, events, and opportunities to serve:

• Mercy Focus: Foster Care & Adoption
• Mercy Focus: Homelessness
• Mercy Focus: Juvenile Detention
• Mercy Focus: Life Project
• Mercy Focus: Refugees

For the Kingdom,

Pastor Justin

Advent Drive, Mercy Ministries | by Pastor Justin Keogh

In Seattle, we have thousands of neighbors who have arrived as refugees, asylees, or immigrants – often fleeing persecution and arriving with only the clothes on their backs. For those who are fortunate enough to be able to navigate the complex immigration system and be resettled in Seattle, they still face an uphill battle to learn to live in a new culture, with a new language, amidst the pain and confusion of trauma they’ve faced.

It is in this space that World Relief Seattle steps in to provide holistic, gospel-motivated, services that range from physical resettlement, language and cultural education, immigration and legal services, economic and employment training, and spiritual empowerment. As a church, we’ve partnered with World Relief Seattle to help serve those vulnerable image-bearers arriving in our city with the love of Christ. We do this because God has loved us in Christ while we were spiritually dead, apart from Him and without hope in the world.

CHRIST: OUR ULTIMATE REFUGE

God calls us to love others because, in Christ, we recognize our own spiritual need and the value of others as His image-bearers. In Deuteronomy 10, we see God connect His character with those who are sojourners. He speaks to ancient Israel, His adopted people who were to bear witness to God’s love, this way:

For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. (Deuteronomy 10:17-19)

God tells Israel about His great love and awesome glory. But He does more than simply tell them; in His wisdom, God reveals His love for them and His power over all things by weaving into Israel’s story a sojourn in and rescue out of Egypt. Israel’s time in Egypt, and their redemption by God out of Pharoah’s hand, serve as undeniable, historical declarations of God’s power and love for His people. These attributes are rooted in His character, and He weaves them into Israel’s story, and then He calls them to love the sojourners in their midst.

The same is true for us in Christ. Ephesians 2 heralds this good news: God’s love for us and power toward us are just as profound, bringing life to dead sinners, bringing those who were far off into unity with God in Christ. Like Israel, we were sojourners, apart from God. Like Israel, we have been given God’s love and grace in Christ. And like Israel, God calls us to live a life that is transformed by His love, a life that glorifies God in the way we love others.

ADVENT DRIVE

This Advent season, we’re hosting a drive with World Relief to purchase physical goods for our refugee, asylee, and immigrant neighbors resettling in Seattle. In 2019, World Relief Seattle has helped resettle almost 200 families (585 individuals). Our goal for this drive is to provide 20 families (or more!) with all of the physical essentials while they resettle in Seattle. That includes everything from toothbrushes and trash bags to bedding and cookware.

In order to make the greatest impact, we’re going to collect financial donations together as a church and then purchase these items in bulk.

WAYS TO PARTICIPATE

We invite you to prayerfully consider a gift toward serving these new neighbors, as God’s beloved image-bearers. 100% of the gifts collected will go directly to the material needs of the families served by World Relief.

• A gift of $25 can purchase the cleaning items for a family of 4
• A gift of $75 can purchase essential kitchenware
• A gift of $250 can provide linens & bedding
• A gift of $500 can provide a full package of essentials for a family of 4

You can contribute through a financial donation using the online giving button below, or by marking a monetary donation as “advent drive” and giving on a Sunday through December or by mailing it in.

DONATE
All contributions are tax-deductible, and World Relief will receive 100% of your donation, less any processing fees (if applicable). A gift acknowledgment will be included in your year-end giving statement.

Visit downtowncornerstone.org/relief to learn more.

Pastor Justin

Mercy Ministries, Mercy Update | by Pastor Justin Keogh

The Mercy Ministry Updates are a regular snapshot of our Mercy Ministries in DCC, where we are working to serve and uphold the value and dignity of God’s most vulnerable image-bearers in our city. Each update highlights one of our focus areas and current prayer requests across all of our focus areas.

Gospel Framework

The Bible, as God’s inspired word, displays God’s good design and our radical need for a savior, found only in Jesus, and calls us to live out our new identity in Christ as we engage the world around us. 

“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be bless in his doing.” (James 1:22-25)

God’s Word instructs every aspect of our lives so that we may more fully glorify him and enjoy him forever. Here, in his letter to the early Christians, James is calling us beyond mental assent or cultural acceptance, inviting us to a life that displays the truths of God’s Word. He goes on to connect this with the call to “visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world” (James 1:27b). Here, we see that the call to be doers of the Word envelopes our whole lives, both in our hearts and minds, and in how we love and serve others. We do not have to prove ourselves or earn our salvation through works because we have been made his children through Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. And because of Christ’s work on our behalf, we can live and serve others joyously and generously for their good and God’s glory.

Mercy Focus Highlight: Mercy Ministry Training

Scripture is full of imperatives for us to serve others – not to earn God’s love, but in response to God’s lavish and gracious love for us. But how exactly are we to go about serving those around us in our city?

This year we are hosting a Mercy Ministry Training on various topics every quarter. We had our first one last Sunday with a great turnout of folks who were eager to learn more about engaging with our city in terms of mercy. Please save the date for the next one–Sunday, February 9th at 11 am. More details will be posted on our Mercy Ministries website.

Partner Prayer Requests

Please join us in praying for the people impacted and involved in each of these focus areas.

Homelessness and UGM

• Pray for the homeless that they will be kept from physical and emotional harm and that they might find hope in Christ through UGM’s outreach and recovery programs.
• Pray for us to be welcoming and loving people to all of our neighbors as God’s image-bearers.

Foster Care & Adoption

• November is National Adoption Awareness Month. Pray that God would continue to draw families to foster care and adoption, that the church would live out God’s concern for vulnerable children.
• Pray for families to be equipped to care for the children they’ve adopted long term with all the various issues and trials that will come.

Refugees

• Pray that as the nations come to us, that we as the local church would make the most of every opportunity to make Jesus’s name known and great among them, so that they may be glad and rejoice in the good news of the Kingdom (Psalm 67:3-4).
• Pray for our brothers and sisters that are being persecuted around the world for their faith in Christ. Pray specifically for countries such as North Korea, Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, and Pakistan.

Juvenile Detention

• Pray for the youth currently in detention, that they would not be defined by their incarceration status but find their identity as a child of God.
• Pray for godly volunteers willing to serve as mentors, pointing youth to Christ.

Life Project

• Pray for a full-time nurse for the CareNet mobile unit, so they can expand into downtown Seattle. Ultimately, Care Net is in need of more staff nurses, ministry wide.
• Pray for those who have chosen abortion(s) and are now understanding their ongoing trauma and feelings of shame. Pray specifically for those seeking care/recovery from Care Net and that the staff/volunteers can help these women process through their choice of abortion, hopefully leading them to Christ. Praise that some of these women seeking care are also now choosing life for their current pregnancies.

Stay Connected

Join the focus area city groups in order to hear more regular updates, events, and opportunities to serve.

• Mercy Focus: Foster Care & Adoption
• Mercy Focus: Homelessness
• Mercy Focus: Juvenile Detention
• Mercy Focus: The LIFE project
• Mercy Focus: Refugees

Mercy Ministries, Mercy Update | by Pastor Justin Keogh

The Mercy Ministry Updates are a regular snapshot of our Mercy Ministries in DCC, where we are working to serve and uphold the value and dignity of God’s most vulnerable image bearers in our city. Each update highlights one of our focus areas, as well as provide a listing of upcoming events, and current prayer requests across all of our focus areas.

Gospel Framework

The Bible, as God’s inspired word, displays God’s good design and our radical need for a savior, found only in Jesus, and calls us to live out our new identity in Christ as we engage the world around us.

“For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.” Deuteronomy 10:17-19

In Deuteronomy 10, God tells Israel about his great love and awesome glory. But he does more than simply tell them; in his wisdom, God reveals his love for them and his power over all things by weaving into Israel’s story a sojourn in and rescue out of Egypt. Israel’s time in Egypt, and their redemption by God out of Pharoah’s hand, serve as undeniable, historical declarations of God’s love and might. These attributes are rooted in his character, and he weaves them into Israel’s story, and then he calls them to love the sojourners in their midst. The same is true for us as it was for Israel. God’s love for us and power for us are just as profound, bringing life to dead sinners, bringing those who were far off into unity with God in Christ (Ephesians 2). Like Israel, we were sojourners, apart from God. Like Israel, we have been given God’s love and grace in Christ. And like Israel, God calls us to live a life that is transformed by his love, a life that glorifies God in the way we love others.

Mercy Focus Highlight: Refugees

As a church we support and partner with several mercy ministries and want to share and highlight their on-going work.

Over 30,000 refugees live in Washington, making Washington one of the top 10 refugee-receiving states (representing 0.4% of WA population). Refugees arriving to the US often come with nothing but the clothes on their backs, often fleeing persecution and face political, cultural, and linguistic barriers as they seek a safe refuge and better life. For those that are provided entry into the US, restarting can be a very lonely and challenging experience. Organizations like World Relief Seattle aim to meet those refugees who’ve become our neighbors through practical material assistance, legal and economic programs, and meaningful relationships. Through partnerships with local churches, World Relief Seattle connects Christians to these arriving refugees in various ways, enabling the love of God to be tangibly expressed and received.

Join us this Sunday, 5/5, at 1pm, to learn more about what makes someone a Refugee, how they come to our neighbors in Seattle, and how we can serve them alongside organizations like World Relief. You can also join our Mercy Focus: Refugee group in Planning Center.

Upcoming Events

Not all events are sponsored or hosted by DCC, but serve those in our focus areas. See linked details for each.

• Thursday 5/2 | Night of Prayer – We will be setting aside some time this evening to pray for REST’s ministry and for those who are being exploited in the sex trade. If you are interested in joining to pray, please email Micah at for details.
• Friday 5/3 | All Our Friends Fest – REST is hosting an upcoming art show and auction featuring many local artists. All proceeds will go to benefiting REST and the clients they serve.
• Sunday 5/5 | DCC Info Session – Refugees – We will be hosting an info session this Sunday after the 11 AM gathering to grow in our biblical understanding of God’s love for the refugee and how that impacts us today.
• Saturday 5/18 | A Night with NuHope – REST is partnering with NuHope for a fundraising event which will serve REST’s ministry and provide a fun opportunity for support!
• Saturday 7/13 | Serve the City – Mark your calendars! This year’s Serve the City is scheduled for July 13th! We’ll have the gift of joyfully serving together at Gatewood Elementary in West Seattle!

Partner Prayer Requests

Please join us in praying for the people impacted and involved in each of these focus areas.

Homelessness and UGM

• Pray for our city leadership, to be able to make wise and helpful legislation that ultimately serves those experiencing homelessness in Seattle.
• Pray for those going through the UGM programs, to find healing and recovery through faith in Jesus. Pray that we would be a welcoming people to those who are struggling and homeless.

Foster Care & Adoption

• Pray for more foster and adoptive families willing and equipped to take children with special needs, especially high medical needs. Pray for the families already taking medically fragile children that they would have a support community and receive rest.
• Pray for the children to not be defined by their diagnosis but as a child of God.

Refugees

• Pray for mutual love and edification between U.S.-born and immigrant sisters and brothers in the American church.
• Pray that the church in America will be unified in loving and caring for immigrants so that together, we can testify to God’s love for all of us through his son, Jesus Christ.

Sex Trafficking and REST 

• Pray for the growth of REST’s recently established Integrated Health Clinic, which provides medical, mental health, and chemical dependency care to those in need. Pray for the clients that will be helped and cared for through the IHC.
• Pray that God’s truth and love would be made known on every street in our city, and that he will bring freedom and peace to those who are being exploited.

Juvenile Detention

• Pray for the youth currently in detention, that they would hear of God’s love through Christian mentors serving them.
• Pray for the families of youth, to be safe and stable, so that youth leaving detention can return to healthy environments.

Life Project

• Pray for their abortion-minded clients; that they ultimately chose life for their child — pray for positive influence from family and their community that will support them and encourage them to continue in their pregnancy, and support them when children are born.
• Praise that CareNet has been able to find a new facility, and pray for the plans to offer extended hours in Seattle through this location and the mobile unit!

Stay Connected

Join the focus area city groups in order to hear more regular updates, events, and opportunities to serve.

• Mercy Focus: Foster Care & Adoption
• Mercy Focus: Homelessness
• Mercy Focus: Juvenile Detention
• Mercy Focus: The LIFE project
• Mercy Focus: Refugees
• Mercy Focus: Sex Trafficking

Ethnic Harmony, Mercy Ministries, Mercy Update

The Mercy Ministry Updates are a regular snapshot of our Mercy Ministries in DCC, where we are working to serve and uphold the value and dignity of God’s most vulnerable image bearers in our city. Each update highlights one of our focus areas, as well as provide a listing of upcoming events, and current prayer requests across all of our focus areas.

Gospel Framework

The Bible, as God’s inspired word, displays God’s good design and our radical need for a savior, found only in Jesus, and calls us to live out our new identity in Christ as we engage the world around us.

“Thus says the LORD of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.”Zechariah 7:9-10

God speaks through Scripture to his people, calling them to faithful action to care for the most vulnerable people around them. Often in these instructions, we see four populations listed – the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, the poor – as a description of those who were most vulnerable in their midst. And we also often see these instructions intermingled with instructions to care for brothers and sisters (“one another”), which is to say, the love that we have for those who are vulnerable is not some “out there” love but a “from here” love that starts in the family of God, rooted in God’s love for us. We love because he first loved us, and has given us the commandment to love others. (1 John 4:19,21). This is good news for us because it means we can put the love of others into practice right here in our church and in our city.

Mercy Focus Highlight: Understanding Disproportionality

As a church we support and partner with several mercy ministries and want to share and highlight their on-going work.

Racial Disproportionality, that is, the underrepresentation or overrepresentation of a racial or ethnic group compared to its percentage in the total population, is a reality in every one of our mercy focus areas (Life/Abortion, Foster Care/Adoption, Juvenile Detention, Sex Trafficking, Homelessness, and Refugees). This means that people, families, and communities of color are more affected than white people, families, and communities (in King County and nationally). So as we care for the most vulnerable populations in each of these areas, we should seek to understand this reality so that it can inform our care. Other types of disproportionality also exist in many of our mercy focus areas, such as the economic disproportionality of women seeking an abortion, and even some interdependencies between them, such as children in foster care and juvenile detention, or juvenile detention and sex trafficking. Similarly, those whom we seek to serve in these areas have, without question, experienced trauma, which likewise informs how we understand and care for them.

These factors lead us to understand the complexity and scope of sin’s impact on our world. In turn, this should also lead us toward increased empathy and informed care for those we serve and increasingly see the measure of Christ’s gift to us in our salvation. As we simultaneously see the depth of sinfulness and brokenness of the world around us and the height of God’s love for us in Christ, we will move toward others in love as he has loved us.

Upcoming Events

Not all events are sponsored or hosted by DCC, but serve those in our focus areas. See linked details for each.

• UGM Women’s Recovery Program Graduation – Jan. 23
• Foster Care Support Group – Jan. 25
• REST Volunteer Training Day – Jan. 26
• World Relief Sea-Tri-Kan Info Session – Jan. 27
• Northwest Health and Human Rights Mental Health Provides Training and Info Session – Feb. 2
• Immigrant & Refugee Advocacy Day – Feb. 5

Partner Prayer Requests

Please join us in praying for the people impacted and involved in each of these focus areas.

Refugees

• Praise God for answering the prayers of World Relief and others, as the federal government announced that it will continue working with all of the organizations that work to resettle refugees in the U.S.
• Pray for those seeking entry into the US, with the recent drop in federally allowed refugees, and elsewhere – that they would be provided for and cared for by the church globally.

 Foster Care & Adoption

• Kids in extended foster care – if a child doesn’t have permanency at the age of 18 then they can apply to be in extended foster care, a program for 18-21 year-olds. Pray they would learn the skills they need for independence, and that they might not lose hope of having a family and a place to call home. 
• Kids aging out of foster care – this is one of the most vulnerable populations of kids. They leave foster care without support and are susceptible to a variety of different dangers from sex trafficking to drug and alcohol abuse to homelessness. Please pray that God would move in the hearts of those families that He wants to adopt the children aging out of foster care.

Sex Trafficking & REST

• By God’s grace, REST has seen their ministry grow significantly over the last few years, and with that has come to the need for new office space. Please pray with REST as they search for office space in Seattle for their administrative team so that they can continue to serve the survivors they work with as effectively as possible.
• As we enter 2019, let’s also be praying for God to transform hearts throughout our city and area. Let’s pray that God will bring many people out of brokenness and into faith and relationship with Him, and let’s pray that He works in and through REST for His glory and the good of many!

Homelessness & UGM

• In 2019 we want to double the number of mentors in our men’s recovery program, going from 20 to 40. Please pray that God would call the next cadre of mentors to the Mission.
• Safety and protection of our homeless neighbors during the wind, rain, and cold of the winter months.  

Juvenile Detention

• Please pray for God to comfort the children that are away and have been away from their families and loved ones during the holidays and who may be feeling particularly lonely and without hope. 
• Please pray that God would open the eyes and hearts of these children to see the real hope they have in Christ despite the circumstances in front of them and for the Lord to put people in their lives that can encourage them to place their trust in Jesus and grow to be more like Him.

Life & CareNet

• Continued favor in the Communities CareNet is serving – For open doors with the social services agencies and health facilities, that these agencies will see the benefits they offer to clients
• New Mobile schedule in 2019 – For direction and provision as they expand their schedule to include DCC and more hours in current locations 

Stay Connected

Join the focus area city groups in order to hear more regular updates, events, and opportunities to serve.

• Mercy Focus: Homelessness
• Mercy Focus: Juvenile Detention
• Mercy Focus: Orphan Care
• Mercy Focus: Refugees
• Mercy Focus: Sex Trafficking
• Mercy Focus: The LIFE project

City Life, Mercy Ministries, Mercy Update | by Pastor Justin Keogh

The Mercy Ministry Updates are a regular snapshot of our Mercy Ministries in DCC, where we are working to serve and uphold the value and dignity of God’s most vulnerable image bearers in our city. Each update highlights one of our focus areas, as well as provide a listing of upcoming events, and current prayer requests across all of our focus areas.

GOSPEL FRAMEWORK
The Bible, as God’s inspired word, displays God’s good design and our radical need for a savior, found only in Jesus, and calls us to live out our new identity in Christ as we engage the world around us.

“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” – Isaiah 55:1

“On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive…” – John 7:37-39

We are often prone to forget the deep wonder of God’s grace for us in Christ. Israel would have heard the promises Isaiah spoke of—promises of forgiveness and restoration and peace and love—and hoped in them for hundreds of years before the fulfillment of these promises in Jesus. If we are honest, we too have felt that deep thirst and longing, which we can only be satisfied in Christ. And Jesus tells us that as we drink and savor God’s love for us in Christ, our hearts will be fountains of living water by the Holy Spirit (cf. John 4:1-15), and that the same joy, satisfaction, and love which we are filled with will also flow outward from us. This imagery of a fountain and of flowing waters richly and beautifully reflects our call to love others as we are loved in Christ. We serve because we have been served by God. We have compassion for others because God has compassion for us. We love because we are a people profoundly and eternally loved by God.

MERCY FOCUS HIGHLIGHT: SEX TRAFFICKING AND REST
As a church we support and partner with several mercy ministries and want to share and highlight their on-going work.

Sex trafficking is a major issue in our city, with an estimated 3,000 individuals are being trafficked in Seattle every night. Our primary partner in this area of focus is REST: Real Escape from the Sex Trade. REST was founded in 2009 with the purpose of powerfully serving and loving victims of sex trafficking by providing prevention, intervention, and restorative services. The nonprofit has served over 1,580 individuals and assisted over 100 in exiting the sex trade for one year or more. Every one of those individuals is a person made in the image of God and every story matters. God has done and is continuing to do amazing things in people’s lives, and it is a joy and a blessing that he gives us the opportunity to lovingly serve those in need.

DCC will be hosting an Info Session with REST this Sunday at 1pm, where you can learn more about the issue of sex trafficking in our city; the work that RESTdoes in caring for sexually exploited women, men, and children; and the ways you can partner with DCC and REST to care for these image-bearers!

UPCOMING EVENTS
Not all events are sponsored or hosted by DCC, but serve those in our focus areas. See linked details for each.

PARTNER PRAYER REQUESTS

• REFUGEES | Let’s be praying for the image-bearers around the world fleeing oppression and destruction, that they would find refuge and justice, that the true King would establish his throne in steadfast love, in faithfulness, in justice, and in righteousness, and that God would give us opportunities and courage to be the advance guard of that kingdom. 
• ORPHAN CARE | This month our prayer focus is the global orphan crisis. Please consider a particular nation as you pray for families in that nation to be strengthened, Christian families to adopt and/or foster children in need, churches and NGOs to partner and seek restoration, and that God would ultimately adopt the fatherless into his family.
• SEX TRAFFICKING & REST | Pray for the young and vulnerable girls who have run away from home and become targets for traffickers. Pray also that they, along with other women, would find shelter in REST’s services including the emergency center.
• HOMELESS & UGM | Pray for the men and women experiencing homelessness in Seattle, especially that those who have contact with UGM will be able to pursue recovery and treatment as needed. Pray also for UGM and its leaders as they undergo a search for a new Mission president.
• JUVENILE DETENTION | It has been really encouraging to see God soften stony hearts and draw some of the young men and women in the detention center closer to Him by sparking curiosity in His word.  Please pray that He would keep this desire burning in their hearts and that they would read and study His word with a desire to know Him, that would continue as the leave detention.
• LIFE & CARENET | Pray for the girls returning to school this year facing unplanned pregnancy, that they’d find life-affirming options through CareNet and other pregnancy centers. Pray for the launch of CareNet’s Smart Programs this year in schools.

STAY CONNECTED
Join the focus area city groups in order to hear more regular updates, events, and opportunities to serve.

• Mercy Focus: Homelessness
• Mercy Focus: Juvenile Detention
• Mercy Focus: Orphan Care
• Mercy Focus: Refugees
• Mercy Focus: Sex Trafficking
• Mercy Focus: The LIFE project

Mercy Ministries, Mercy Update | by Pastor Justin Keogh

The Mercy Ministry Updates are a regular snapshot of our Mercy Ministries in DCC, where we are working to serve and uphold the value and dignity of God’s most vulnerable image bearers in our city. Each update highlights one of our focus areas, as well as provide a listing of upcoming events, and current prayer requests across all of our focus areas.

Gospel Framework

The Bible, as God’s inspired word, displays God’s good design and our radical need for a savior, found only in Jesus, and calls us to live out our new identity in Christ as we engage the world around us.

         “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” – Genesis 1:26-27

        “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb… Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.” – Psalm 139:13-16

In the first chapters of Genesis we see God’s creative work in creating men and women in his own image. This is the source of our intrinsic value, dignity, and worth – that we are made in the image of God. In Psalm 139, we see that God’s care for his children starts even before birth. God, in the depths of his love and riches of his grace, cares profoundly about human life – and for this reason so should we, as his adopted and beloved people, move in the love, grace, and truth which God has poured out on us through Jesus to protect, care for, and show compassion to the many children who have yet to be born and the mothers who are facing questions and doubts in the midst of their pregnancy.

Mercy Focus Highlight: Care Net

As a church we support and partner with several mercy ministries and want to share and highlight their on-going work.

Care Net Pregnancy & Family Services is the largest pregnancy crisis center/resource in the Puget Sound region (7 centers, 35 staff, 450 volunteers). Care Net provides confidential, professional, life-affirming services to clients at no cost, including medical consultations, pregnancy and STI testing, ultrasound, perinatal hospice, abortion recovery, and more. They have locations in Federal Way, Issaquah, Kenmore, Gig Harbor, Lakewood, Puyallup, and Tacoma. In 2016-2017, we as a church had the opportunity to help Save The Storks spearhead and raise funds for a mobile ultrasound unit for Care Net, which is now providing resources for clients in certain Seattle areas. Recently, Care Net has also been able to acquire another mobile unit to serve the Bellevue area. 

If you are interested in ways you can continue to learn and get involved alongside others in our church, please join the Mercy Focus: The LIFEProject group on the City, which will be a go-to place for information and upcoming events! Also, please check out our Care Net Info Session, occurring this Sunday (7/22) downstairs at 1pm!

Upcoming Events

These events are not necessarily sponsored or hosted by DCC, but serve those in our focus areas. See linked details for each event.

• 7/22 – Care Net Info Session (@ DCC)
• 8/2 – Art Gallery (@ UGM, Pioneer Square)
• 8/10-8/11 – 4US FunFest (@ Steilacoom Park)
• 8/13-8/17 – Refugee Youth Summer Camp (@World Relief, Kent)
• 8/18 – Refugee Community Garden Work Day (@ Hillside Church, Kent)

Partner Prayer Requests

Please join us in praying for the people impacted and involved in each of these focus areas.

Refugees | With immigration policies and enforcement at the center of national media over the last month, let’s continue praying for wisdom and compassion for our leaders, and for God’s felt presence and great grace on families affected by the recent policy and enforcement decisions.

Orphan Care | When kids come from a trauma background (as all of the kids in the foster & adoption world do) it can be difficult for them to deal with changes in routine. This can effect how they regulate their emotions and how their behavior can change. Summer can be an especially challenging time because it means a change in school and routine. Pray that the families would be able to settle into routines and have a joyful summer.

Sex Trafficking & REST | Let’s give thanks for the recent increase in awareness of the issue of sex trafficking in our city, state, and country, and let’s pray that God will move in the hearts of people – politicians, organizations, ministries, churches, and all of us – to bring about real transformation for his glory and the good of those in need.

Homelessness & UGM | As the summer months are here, the winter shelters close and more people are sleeping on the streets in the hot sun without easy access to clean water. Please pray for these individuals and that God would provide the means for these men, women, and children to survive.

Juvenile Detention | Pray for the conversations between kids and mentors, that the gospel would be proclaimed, that God would draw the kids to himself, and they find hope in Christ.

Life & CareNet | Praise for an increase in clients visiting the mobile van around Seattle, and pray for even more who would come to choose life! Pray for grace in the communities they serve, specifically for a new schedule starting in July.

Stay Connected

Join the focus area city groups in order to hear more regular updates, events, and opportunities to serve.

• Mercy Focus: Homelessness
• Mercy Focus: Juvenile Detention
• Mercy Focus: Orphan Care
• Mercy Focus: Refugees
• Mercy Focus: Sex Trafficking
• Mercy Focus: The LIFE project