The history of outreach at Church of Our Saviour extends far beyond the borders of Chicago. Below are some of the broader outreach programs COS is involved in. Please complete the Volunteer Form to get involved or contact the office with any questions.
Mission Trips
“Be,” “Know,” “Do” are three important concepts at Church of Our Saviour. It is vital to our common life that we ‘be’ people who pray, who study Scripture, and both corporately and individually reside in the Christian life. It is important that we ‘know’ each other, because to make Christian community and to faithfully love one another we must know our fellow community members (and be known by them). But to really live out our Christian commitment, we must ‘do.’
ASP (A SERVICE PROJECT) YOUTH GROUP TRIP
For over two decades, the senior high youth group and adult sponsors have traveled to areas experiencing severe poverty in Appalachia and, since Hurricane Katrina, severe destruction in the Gulf Coast. This service trip is a hybrid – combining days spent doing home repair and nights spent doing retreat activities. The youth are divided into work teams, each with at least one adult sponsor, and tackle things as varied as replacing a rotted floor or adding needed insulation to a home. (Sometimes while trying to avoid angry insects!) Every spring, the members and friends of Church of Our Saviour look forward to the “ASP Dinner”, the high school youth’s fundraiser for the summer trip, and an opportunity for the entire congregation to hear stories of the past summer’s trip, enjoy a beautiful meal and live music, and participate in live and silent auctions which help raise funds for the upcoming trip.
CHIAPAS, MEXICO
Among the important outreach activities in our parish is participation in an informal coalition with members of several Chicago parishes working together as the "Chiapas Project" in the Chicago Diocese Companionship relationship with the Diocese of Southeast Mexico. This coalition includes three parishioners in Chicago: St. Chrysostom's, Church of Our Savior, and Church of the Atonement and Holy Comforter (Kenilworth). Since being charged in 2010 by Bishop Benito with the support of his diocese missions in Chiapas, members of the Chiapas Project have made annual visits to two missions in Chiapas: St. Benito de Nursia in St. Cristobal, and St. Marcos at Yochib in the Mayan highlands, as well as occasional visits to two children's homes: the Hogar Infantil in Ocozocoactia and the Mision Mexico in Tapachula. The Project has staged three major fundraisers in 2010, 2012 and 2016, and in 2013 began selling Chiapan textiles at diocese venues which they continue offering; these resources have helped purchase the site for the church in Yochib, provide student scholarships, deliver on-going weekly English and health-care classes there, provided donations to the children's homes, and responded to the Bishop's appeal for contributions to priest's salaries.
Our “Mission of Presence”in the Chiapas communities has taught us new meanings of "mission" in which our presence and our worship with our fellow Anglicans has been mutually enriching. Parishioners in Chiapas remark on the meaning they derive from our repeated visits: "Your coming back makes you part of us and that gives us strength." "Coming from such a distance to worship with is, we see as an affirmation of God's presence in our midst." Currently, COS is a major supporter of weekly health delivery classes in Yochib conducted by Carlos Garcia Ballinas who is also increasingly becoming something of a community organizer in Yochib