Soul Care Devotional

Love God | ”"Embracing the value of loving God means being an unafraid risk-taker, prioritizing 'being' before 'doing', and fearlessly tackling the tough challenges with unwavering faith."

Love People | ”Embracing the value of loving people means that every person is made in the image of God and we will always prioritize people above tasks”

Pursue Excellence | ”Embracing the value of pursuing excellence means that there is a relentless commitment to always improving and never settling for anything less than our best.”

Choose Joy | ”Embracing the value of Choosing Joy means that Jesus is the source of our joy. Our aim is to be humble and teachable, enabling us to serve together with an attitude that honors God.”

I want to share a few really great statistics around volunteerism:

1 out of 4 American’s volunteer, and 2 out of 3 Americans help their neighbor

Volunteers are worth an average of $28.54 an hour according to an Independent Sector Study

Volunteerism has a value of over $184 billion dollars

Volunteering decreases the likelihood of high blood pressure development by 40%

According to an AmericCorps report, people who volunteer over 100 hours a year are some of the healthiest people in the U.S.

96% of volunteers reported the action enriched their sense of purpose in life

Shocking - Only 55% nonprofits and even fewer with churches assess impact to the volunteer.

In light of the rise of self-care and our culture’s heightened awareness of the physical and nutritional practices needed to care for the body and the mind, as your Pastor I want to embrace a more biblical approach to health - called “soul care.” Soul care isn’t a knock against self- care, but it is a challenge for us to make caring for our inner life a higher priority. It is our desire to give you further direction from Scripture on how we can care for our souls and develop a deeper, richer relationship with our Lord and Savior in the process.

I am excited to announce a more intentional process that we will be providing to all of our Dream Teamers.

We have partnered with Soul Care - an organization that walks people through assessment and provides a framework to develop a healthy plan in soul care that helps you succeed.

We know that burnout is a real thing and it is our desire that you come to your Dream Team opportunities full and embracing the people of Christ in your life.

Flourishing - we are designed by God to flourish. There five areas of flourishing that matter to our well-being:

vocational

Financial

Mental/physical

Relational, and

Spiritual.

We will be rolling out Dream Team Soul Care plan in the weeks ahead. You will be receiving an email from Pastor Melissa outlining how this plan will work and the resources that we will be providing to help you live and serve from a place of peace.

A part of this plan will be assessments, development on your soul care plan with a member of our Care Team & pastoral staff, and intentional practices that replenish your soul with Jesus.