Church Beyond Sunday
For many people, being part of a faith community includes serving. Calvary offers ways to use your gifts of time and talent to make a difference in the community and around the world.
Volunteering and serving opportunities include working with Calvary’s Matthew 25 Partners and other local nonprofit partners, the church’s Racial Equity Initiative and Living Sanctuary ministry. The church cultivates community partnerships where others can share their wisdom and guide our ministry.
As Calvary’s community ministry arm, Faith in Action is committed to working for equity and justice and showing God’s loving kindness in the community beyond our church walls. Church leaders, pastors and volunteers, focus both on structural injustices such as poverty and racism, and on acts of kindness, love, and healing among our neighbors. Calvary’s mission is anchored in extending welcome to the stranger and recognizing the full humanity of each of God’s children.
All Faith in Action Events
Matthew 25 Partners
After a long history of working in the community to break cycles of poverty, and serving those in need, Calvary, through PC(USA) is a Matthew 25 congregation. In the 25th chapter of the gospel of Matthew, people ask Jesus where they encountered him, and he says ‘for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Aligning with Calvary’s existing work, the Matthew 25 church focal points are Building Congregational Vitality, Dismantling Structural Racism, and Eradicating Systemic Poverty.
Racial Equity Initiative
Calvary’s Racial Equity Initiative (REI) programs are designed to help us recognize and educate ourselves about systemic racism, to explore the unconscious bias in our own hearts and minds, and to promote discussion and understanding.
Calvary’s Racial Equity Initiative statement of purpose: We recommit to recognizing and dismantling racism and unconscious bias in our own hearts and minds, in the institution of the church, and in the broader culture. We will provide a space to process what we are seeing and learning and to discern our call as a community of faith to take action toward these goals. Our shared set of values and mission calls us to transform lives for Christ: that now calls us to transform our own lives to be less complicit in racist aspects of our culture, to transform the lives of those who have historically faced oppression by helping eradicate systemic racism disproportionately affecting them, and to be the hands and feet of Christ by opposing institutions and practices everywhere that deny the full humanity of all God’s children.
Living Sanctuary
In accordance with Micah 6:8, Calvary is committed to the biblical teaching to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God. Welcoming and walking with immigrants and refugees in our city has been a long-time commitment for our congregation, even before we became a sanctuary church in 2018.
With your participation and support, Calvary will continue and expand this work, growing the impact we can make in San Francisco, the Bay Area and the world. We invite you to join us and get involved with Calvary’s Living Sanctuary Team.