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photo credit by Margery Westin
It is how we Serve that encourages us to step outside ourselves and enrich the lives of our community and our world. There are many ways you can serve in November and December, take a look at our online Action Bulletin Board below or you can visit the Action Table on Sundays after worship and meet our new Mission and Outreach Associates, Elise Hanley and Tom Schneider who will help you find a volunteer opportunity through which you can make a difference in our church and the greater community. Let this season lead you to opportunities that not only interest you but, more importantly, feed your soul.
Our Mission
We are an inclusive community led by the spirit of Christ in creating an atmosphere where miracles of change and growth take place, inspiring a faith which helps overcome the adversities of life, and empowering each to become the light of Christ in the world.
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Action Bulletin Board
Did you know? – In the early 1980s, in response to the growing crisis of homelessness in New York City, Mayor Ed Koch issued a call to the city's faith-based community to partner with the city in addressing the problem. They responded by opening emergency shelters in churches and synagogues. This became known as the Emergency Shelter Network, and has proven to be a successful and cost-effective alternative to the overcrowded city shelter system. Our neighbor, Madison Avenue Baptist Church, provides such a shelter in their parish house. Guests arrive from a drop-in center, where they receive social services and housing assistance, and where they are carefully screened. Are you interested in supporting our unhoused brothers and sisters? Contact Elise Hanley to learn how you can help.
The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. – Mohandas Gandhi
Below are other ways you can serve:
Saturday, February 4
5 volunteers are needed for a Habitat for Humanity rehabilitation project in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. This project is part of Habitat-NYC’s 100 Homes in Brooklyn initiative to improve this iconic neighborhood through both new construction and rehabilitation of affordable homes. 9:15am-4:30pm, tools and instructions provided.
Sunday, February 5
Contribute food to HONEY (Help Our Neighbors Eat Year-round) by bringing single-serving non-perishables to the Action Table in Bay Hall.
Sunday, February 5
Help serve lunch to senior adults in need at Madison Avenue Baptist Church’s Sunday Lounge, Madison Avenue and 31st Street.
Sunday, February 12
Volunteers are needed to help prepare 30 lunches, 9:30-10:30am, for our Ecclesia Ministry (an open-air worshipping congregation for the community in Madison Square Park). We also need others to transport the lunches and host the service which begins at 2:00pm; meet in the 29th St. lobby at 1:30pm. Donations of individual-sized juice boxes, small snack foods, and jars of peanut butter and jelly for Ecclesia may be left any Sunday at the Action Table in Bay Hall.
Sunday, February 19
We kick-off our annual Drive for Dignity, which provides new undergarments to homeless adults living in shelters. Donations of new boxers, briefs, bras, t-shirts, tank tops and socks will be accepted through April 1.
ONGOING OUTREACH PROGRAMS
Marble Fights Hunger
Please support our continuous food drive. Bring non-perishable items with you to church and leave in baskets in the narthex or lobby. This food is then distributed to church pantries helping those who need emergency food.
Marble Blood Drive
Marble will not be hosting a blood drive this year, but we encourage all who are able to donate blood on a consistent basis to help keep the NY Blood Bank stocked. There is NO replacement for voluntarily given human blood! It is the gift of life, and one that many of us may need to receive in our lifetimes. Make an appointment at www.nybloodcenter.org.
Marble Coffee Pourers Ministry
If you’d like to volunteer one Sunday a month to serve during Coffee Hour after worship, please contact Rebecca Vigil (RVigil@marblechurch.org). WeWo Visuals Ministry – If you’d like to volunteer to help with the projected visuals during Worship, approximately one Wednesday a month, please contact Siobhan Tull (STull@marblechurch.org).
The Sunday Lounge
We are looking for one or two special people: Every first Sunday of the month, Marble is responsible for supplying volunteers and food at The Sunday Lounge, a weekly luncheon for disadvantaged older adults, held at Madison Avenue Baptist Church. Chef Ron and his crew make the food, and a very small but dedicated group of volunteers handles all details of the food service. This special group could use an extra set of hands or two every month to assist with prep, beginning at 9:00am. For more details, please contact Elise Hanley.
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We are an outward-looking congregation, conveying a message of hope to create a better world. Initiatives in include:
Action Volunteers
Feeding the homeless, visiting AIDS patients and donating food to city shelters, cleaning up New York City parks and schools -- these are just a few of the many opportunities available through Marble’s vigorous ACTION Volunteer program. Our Director of Volunteer Ministries provides members and friends with short or long term ways to meet the needs of the church family or the community at large.
Easter Offering
A committee of church members conducts thorough research of prayerfully-selected ministries in New York City and beyond to receive distributions of Marble’s Easter Offering. In recent years the offering has surpassed $160,000 and contributed to the support of such agencies as Seeds of Peace, Habitat for Humanity, Children’s Aid Society, and numerous others.
A Partnership of Faith
Co-founded in 1991 by Dr. Arthur Caliandro, interfaith clergy from across New York City come together regularly to talk about issues of concern. Arising from that association, our annual Thanksgiving “trialogue” sermon, in which an imam and a rabbi join our Senior Minister on the chancel to discuss the intersections of faith in the world, has become a Marble tradition.
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Worshippers at Marble Collegiate Church are called to "go forth to serve" at the end of each Sunday worship experience, because service to others is an essential part of our spiritual journey. This looking ever forward, ever outward with our faith has been a significant part of Marble’s history.
Since the Collegiate Church's founding in the early 1600s our forebears opened their arms to others regardless of their faith traditions, creating an atmosphere of inclusiveness and community outreach. The custom of action-oriented ministries dates from the Revolutionary War, and includes sewing brigades during the Civil War and both World Wars, and the creation of early empowerment for immigrant women, who were given work opportunities throughout the late 1800s and early 1900s.
In the 1920s, the noontime Open Air Pulpit from the church’s doorway at 29th Street and Fifth Avenue attracted crowds of thousands. Recognizing the importance of spreading the Word, Marble’s broadcast of sermons and services "from Fifth Avenue to the World," first through radio, then television, has meant an outreach that continues to increase its global scope. MarbleVision, the church's media ministry, now encompasses a program of publications and broadcasts to a worldwide audience.
Past Initiatives Have Been:
South Africa Partnership
In 2002 Marble Church entered a partnership with three churches in Soweto, South Africa, that continue to suffer from the damage of apartheid. We explore ways to develop the spiritual and physical growth of our partners through programs such as building and repairing African churches, creating revenue-generating projects, sponsoring AIDS-awareness events, and more.
Becoming a part of Marble Collegiate Church means becoming a part of its tradition of mission in the world. As Christ showed us by example, we know that service to others may be our most relevant act.
I Have A Dream
Marble became the first church in the U.S. to adopt a class through Eugene Lang’s “I Have A Dream” program, providing disadvantaged grade school students in Harlem with a way to make college a realistic goal.
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