Social justice
At Hope Central Church, we believe God’s peace and justice are intimately connected with our faith and our lives together. We have been called to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, and visit the sick and imprisoned. We believe justice is prophetic, relational, active, and always challenging us – as individuals and society – to become what God is calling us to become. Justice is about working hand in hand with Jesus to help “make society right." To this end, the Hope Church community strives to educate, support, advocate for, pray for, and serve our neighbors in Boston and beyond with open minds, open hands, and open hearts.
Hope Central Church has a Fast-Track Grant program to provide support to various organizations in our community and beyond. We have ongoing service commitments to the Kitty Dukakis Treatment Center for Women in Jamaica Plain, and to St. Paul's Health Center in Ugunja, Kenya. We join with other churches on social justice issues through the Boston Faith and Justice Network (including our Lazarus at the Gate economic discipleship groups, and our initiative to become a Fair Trade Church) and the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization. Finally, we're always open to new initiatives in the areas of social justice and community service.
Here are the details of our various projects, with suggestions of ways that you can get involved. To begin participating in any of these efforts, contact our Social Justice team at socialjustice@hopeboston.org or call the church office at 617-522-0600.
Fast-Track Grants
Fast-Track Grants are an expression of the richness and diversity of Hope Central Church's social justice commitments, and a way to support and encourage participation in God's peace and justice. If you are a Hope Central Church Covenant Partner (anyone who has joined the church), Hope Central Church wants to support a cause that matters to you. Our fast-track grant program provides a quick and easy process for requesting a grant (of up to $250) for social justice work. A grant may support a nonprofit organization, contribute to an event or activity, or provide help to someone in need. To apply for a grant, complete this Fast Track Grant Application (Word document).
Kitty Dukakis Treatment Center for WomenThe Kitty Dukakis Treatment Center for Women, operated by hopeFound at Shattuck Hospital in Jamaica Plain, provides treatment for homeless women in the early stages of recovery from substance abuse. At Hope Central Church, we work to support the treatment center by doing volunteer work, collecting items needed by women at the center, participating in events with the women (from baking cookies to karaoke!), giving funds to redecorate a patient room (the first room in a drive to "make over" the whole center), and by helping to raise money and raise awareness. Our efforts were recently recognized by hopeFound as it named Hope Church a recipient of its Community Champions award for 2008. |
Support from Hope Church enabled a "make over" of this room at the Kitty Dukakis Treatment Center. |
|
Caroline, a nurse at St. Paul's Health Center in Kenya, weighs a kindergarten student. |
St. Paul's Health Center in KenyaSince 2007, Hope Central Church has partnered with St. Paul’s Health Center, a locally-founded and locally-operated health center in rural western Kenya. St. Paul’s mission is to promote spiritual, mental, social and physical well-being through prevention of disease, care for the sick, support for the needy, and advocacy for the vulnerable. Hope Central Church covenant partners Amara and Matt Mulder spent six months in Kenya working with the health center, and a partnership between Hope and St. Paul's grew from this relationship. A Bluegrass Harvest Festival fundraiser at Hope raised over $6,000 enabling St. Paul's to finish building a maternal and child health center. Hope Central Church is also providing ongoing support to the clinic's community health workers and outreach program. See our feature page on St. Paul's Health Center to learn more about the people who work at and are served by the clinic, and about the issues that are important to them.
|
Boston Faith and Justice Network
The Boston Faith and Justice Network (BFJN) is an ecumenical community of Christians seeking justice as an expression of faith. BFJN mobilizes Christians to alleviate poverty and promote just stewardship through personal, community, and policy change. Many Hope Church covenant partners are active in BFJN’s programs and Hope Central Church is a partner church in BFJN’s work through these two initiatives:
Economic Discipleship: "Lazarus at the Gate" is a small group program in which church members gather together to talk about their relationship to money and to the global poor. These discussions create the opportunity to support each other to live gratefully and make concrete changes including living more simply and buying fair-trade products that provide more direct benefit to the poor. The four "Lazarus commitments" are: spend joyfully, spend differently, spend less, and give more. At the end of its sessions, each Lazarus group pools the money saved by making specific lifestyle changes and makes a collective gift to address global poverty. To date, Lazarus groups in Boston have given away over $120,000 to the global poor. Hope Church launched two Lazarus groups in 2007 and 2008 which continue to meet; see our Lazarus Groups feature page for more about their experiences.
Fair Trade: Hope Central Church aims to be a "Fair Trade Church" along with other churches in the Boston Faith and Justice Network as part of the Fair Trade Boston campaign. Hope's Fair Trade Team, along with teams in several other churches, have already helped over a dozen businesses, organizations, and churches switch to Fair Trade in a quest to make Greater Boston a "Fair Trade Town." See our Fair Trade feature page for much more about what Fair Trade means and how you can be a part of it.
Greater Boston Interfaith Organization
Hope Central Church is a member of the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO), a broad-based organization that trains and organizes the communities of Greater Boston across religious, racial, ethnic, class and neighborhood lines for the public good. GBIO seeks to develop local leadership and change public policy on a variety of social justice and human service issues. GBIO is affiliated with national and regional networks of similar groups: the Industrial Areas Foundation and Metro IAF.
GBIO and Metro IAF have launched a campaign to cap interest rates at 10%; see the site "10 Percent is Enough" and this video for more. Other GBIO campaigns include: Aging with Dignity, an action plan to secure better access to services for elderly people; Debts to Assets, a financial counseling program to help people stay debt free in a failing economy; and an initiative to address Youth and Safety. GBIO worked with other organizations to make Massachusetts the first state in the nation with health insurance for all, and led a successful campaign to achieve just working conditions for the largely Haitian aides and orderlies in nursing homes.
Start something new
Besides our existing projects, we are always looking for new ideas, dreams, and visions, and for people who can take the initiative to make them a reality. If you have an idea that could be the seed for a new social justice project at Hope Central Church, get in touch with our social justice team.
