This is a strong activity of our congregation.  Those who work in the Social Ministry of our congregation research and raise issues of need and social justice in our local community, state, nation, and around the world.

 

In our Williamsburg community, we give time and money to these agencies:

·         Avalon (a shelter for battered women and children)

·         FISH (an ecumenical emergency needs center)

·         The Grove Christian Outreach Center

·         Hospice Support Care of Williamsburg

·         Housing Partnership, Inc. (building houses for low-income people)

·         Meals on Wheels

·         Olde Towne Medical Center and the Angels of Mercy Medical Clinic (offering medical services for low-income people)

·         Peninsula Pastoral Counseling Center

·         PORT (Homeless Shelter Program)

·         Williamsburg AIDS Network

·         Williamsburg Faith In Action

 

We serve across our state as a leader in our response, among Lutheran churches in Virginia, to the United Lutheran Appeal, which supports nine ministries, agencies, camps and schools affiliated with the Virginia Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Nationally, members of St. Stephen have made trips to New Orleans, to help re-build buildings damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

 

mongai_lutheran_parish_17Our ministries extend globally through our partnership with our sister congregation, the Mongai Lutheran Parish in Marangu, Tanzania, and through support of the ELCA World Hunger Offerings and Lutheran World Relief projects, such as constructing warm quilts for worldwide distribution to refugees and to disaster areas.

 

We engage in advocacy ministry through Bread for the World, which urges our national legislators to authorize more hunger relief around the world; and through the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, an ecumenical advocacy group to the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia.  St. Stephen is a congregational member of both of these organizations.

 

For more information, please call the church office (229-6688), and you’ll be connected to a leader in this ministry!