CityLights has established a relationship based 'ministry of presence' in the lives of St. Louis residents. Committed to long-term participation in diverse urban comunity, projects are driven by immediate needs and priorities and are therefore always changing.
The following is a list of some projects done in years past to give you some inisght into what you can expect:
EQUIP A COMMUNITY
CityLights helped a single mother of five to rehab her home and start her own daycare center. Previously all five of these children had lived in the living room, dining room or hallway of this one bedroom home. With no room for furniture, they all kept school clothes in plastic trash bags. CityLights rehabed an unfinished basement into two large bedrooms with walk-in closets and shelves for her children. The following year CityLights returned to rehab the 1st floor,converting it into a day care center for 10 neighborhood pre-schoolers and infants. The result was that the homeowner was able to leave welfare and successfully operate a business out of her home which functions as a witness and ministry to the surrounding community.
MOTHERS COMMUNITY CENTER
Ready a former duplex apartment to be used as office for a neighborhood health ministry to expectant mothers and new-borns. This ministry now has about 25 community moms in parenting classes, Bible studies and discipleship mentoring relationships.
COMPUTER LITERACY PROGRAM
CityLights removed sheet rock walls and ceilings to prepare the entire upper floor
of a 100 year old urban church for a neighborhood tutoring and computer literacy ministry. This youth work was planned as the initial ministry development in an underserved multi-ethnic, largely immigrant community. Two years later there was a thriving new congregation of 80 serving that neighborhood.
LONG-TERM COMMUNITY BUILDING
Some CityLights participants may work in various community oriented projects such as:
- tutoring inner-city children
- maintenance and repair for widows and the elderly
- serving as teaching aids in both Christian and public elementrary schools
- assisting in major rehab projects for several Christian families who have chosen to move into the inner city to "re-neighbor" communities, living out and proclaiming the gospel
