Summer is here! So let’s get strategic and plan ahead to love our neighbor this fall. Mars Hill, we’re having a Back-to-School Drive starting at the end of this month.
Who
You.
Why
Stop. Read carefully—this is important. The Back-to-School Drive is a chance to love our neighbors, but it’s far more than an act of kindness. This is a practical act of service that opens up opportunities to share the love of Jesus with people. The point is to build bridges with the communities around our churches and introduce every person to Jesus. So many people have no idea that Jesus cares about the fact that their child needs a #2 pencil. They don’t know what Jesus is like. So let’s not just tell them, let’s show them.
What
This is a drive to collect as many school supplies as humanly possible—maybe more than humanly possible. We are Christians, after all. Look for details from your church, but you can bet, whatever school your local church partners with, their students will probably need #2 pencils (no getting sneaky with those #3s), pencil cases, sharpeners, spiral notebooks, two-inch three-ring binders, pocket folders, report covers, crayons, highlighters, markers, dry erase markers, tissues, hand sanitizer, blue or black pens, stacks of lined paper, copy paper, construction paper, composition books, index cards, staplers, staples, rulers, protractors, glue sticks, scissors, tape, calculators, really cool backpacks—you get the idea.
If you can donate a pack of pencils, awesome. If you can buy a backpack and stuff it with school supplies, awesome. Do what you can as the part of the body of Christ that you are.
When
The Back-to-School Drive will be a three week long effort in conjunction with the Best Sermon Ever series. Your church will begin collecting supplies on July 27, and we will have until August 10 to bring in as many supplies as we can. If the schools in your area start earlier, your church may hold their back-to-school drive sooner, so listen for detalis in your local church's announcements. The idea is to get all the supplies together so that they can be distributed a few weeks before school actually begins, lifting a huge load from the shoulders of many, many parents struggling to provide everything their children need for the new school year.
Where
Each local church will partner with a school of their choice in order to make the greatest possible impact.
Look, parents everywhere are staring at a list of required school supplies for the next school year, wondering how on earth they’re going to scrape enough together to provide their son or daughter with everything they’re going to need. This is a very real need. But Jesus provides all our needs—even spiral notebooks.
Bring your school supplies to drop off at your local church starting July 27th.
