Many churches have a time during the year that they dedicate towards serving the community. However, not many of them dedicate a week to serving or take on multisite projects, but at Vaughn Forest, that’s exactly what we do. We call it Love Week.

Love Week is an opportunity for us to leverage one of our greatest assets, our people, to make a real tangible difference in our community and the surrounding area. As Administrative Pastor, Hardy Sellers, says, it’s an opportunity to get people out of the church and into the communities serving.

“Service is one of the purposes of the church,” said Hardy, “We at VF have a great resource in people and we look for opportunities to do things that need to be done that no one else is doing.”

This is the second year that Vaughn Forest has taken on Love Week and this year there are more than ten different projects that members can be a part of. From working at the schools to get ready for kids to return in just a couple of weeks to serving widows through Beauty by Fire, and sorting donations at Forest Park Ministries, there is something for everyone to do.

Long-time church member, Wendy Bethea, brought her whole family along with her to serve at Pike Road Middle School on Tuesday to kick off Love Week. Wendy says that Vaughn Forest has been a part of her family for as long as she can remember. She was baptized here. Her girls have grown up here. Her family truly loves the church, so much so that they drive in from Deatsville not only to attend church but to serve as well.

“Any time that we’re able to help out the community and give back to those that can’t help themselves or do little things like we’re doing at the school we try to be involved”

Wendy told us that they chose to serve on Tuesday because her husband is off work on that day, and she was able to get off work as well so that they could all serve together. Serving together as a family is very important to the Betheas.

“Working together as a family to serve God is what we love to do.”

That sentiment runs true throughout Vaughn Forest Love Week. We as a faith family want to come together and serve God. It’s what we love to do and that’s why Love Week is so important to us.

If you haven’t had an opportunity to join your faith family on mission this week, don’t worry. There are still several opportunities left. We have service projects going on Friday and Saturday. You can go to vaughnforest.com/loveweek to sign up for a project!