Dear Friends,
Its COLD in our office and we have officially broken out the space heaters. Yes, fall has fallen and we are enjoying the crisp air and looking forward to the excitement of the Holiday season. This year, our Monday night meal will celebrate Thanksgiving on November 23rd! Please consider joining us for this always fun and special evening! If you’d like more information, please contact us.
Additionally, if you want to get a jump start on Holiday shopping and also want an easy way to support our organization financially with no extra cost to you, please consider clicking on the yellow box on the left-hand side of our website which says “Help us raise funds by shopping through our marketplace.” A percentage of any purchase you make through the 1,500 stores available will go to us!
And finally, when searching online for that perfect gift for your loved ones, please consider using “GoodSearch” in the place of your normal search engine. Visit http://www.goodsearch.com and type in “Mosaic Community Development” as the organization you are supporting. Each time you search the web, we receive a small donation. Thanks in advance for all of your continued support! (And don’t forget, we still have a couple t-shirts up for grabs!)
CommonLife
CommonLife trains, equips, and supports individuals and small groups in their companionship of individuals and families in need as they transition through and beyond poverty. In our attempt to facilitate these relationships, we are looking for those within the body of Christ that want to hear more about how they can enter into these healthy, whole relationships. At inCommon, we are introducing periodic informational meetings that you and/or your small group can attend in order for us to get to know you and to share with you an overview of what we do at inCommon through CommonLife. The next informational meeting will be Monday, October 5th at 7pm at the inCommon offices. Please feel free to come, meet our staff and begin the conversation of what it may mean for you to be in relationship with those in need. If you cannot make the meeting this month, please check our website for future dates or if you would like more information, please contact us.
Katie Ursini, CommonLife Coordinator
It’s Time to Bring Social Entrepreneurialism Home
One of the great global movements in the current age is a reengaged entrepreneurial spirit within the realm of social issues. From Kiva (person-to-person micro-lending) to TOMS Shoes (“one for one” matching donation shoe company) to PATH (bringing “health within reach” to the majority world), perhaps more than ever before groups and individuals are thinking creatively and innovatively about how we can care for our global brothers and sisters. Unfortunately, across the landscape of social “possibilities,” the issue (or rather reality) of domestic poverty has received little attention and, as a result, is now desperate for a new approach.
During a four-year span of this current decade the U.S. witnessed a 42% increase in federal anti-poverty spending[1] while at the same time 6 million more of our neighbors in the US entered into the threshold of poverty[2]. Something’s amiss in our country’s strategy to fight poverty, and as a result more and more lives are becoming broken. At inCommon Community Development we believe a new strategy must be imagined, a strategy offering real solutions and hope for those who struggle for life outside our own front doors.
According to Dr. Robert Lupton out of Atlanta, GA, “The single greatest cause for sustainable poverty in our cities is isolation.” Isolation! This is an astonishing statement as it directly counters how we normally view poverty in the US as a lack of services or resources. Services and resources, of course, are crucial needs for those in poverty. However, if the overarching, long-term problem is isolation, the solution can’t be found in bigger or better programs, but in people!
Relationships, then, must set the course for a new movement in domestic social entrepreneurialism. Such a simple solution yet, at the same time, so challenging.
The 2006 US Census revealed there are over 56,000 people in the Omaha metro living at or below the poverty level. In order for us to relationally extend ourselves to 56,000 people we must first experience a paradigm shift – we must view the reality of poverty as a community-owned issue instead of an agency-owned dilemma. Though a challenging (and weighty) shift to make, this movement toward community ownership is highly conducive in “setting the table” for relational investment.
Poverty is a global reality, and regionally speaking our creative energy mustn’t be categorized in terms of “either-or” but propelled into the possibilities of a “both-and” perspective. We have the social capital to pioneer new and powerful life-giving solutions alongside our brothers and sisters both across the globe and at home.
For information on how you can get personally involved in creative social solutions in Omaha please contact us.
Christian Gray, Executive Director
[1] Brian Riedl, The Heritage Foundation
[2] U.S. Census Bureau, 2006
Brian Riedl, The Heritage Foundation
[1] U.S. Census Bureau, 2006
