Union Avenue Christian Church in St. Louis has provided an exciting outreach ministry for many years called “Urban Mission Inn.” Urban Mission Inn has provided both space and program support for groups of youth, college age, and adults coming to St. Louis to engage in hands-on mission and mission education. Many Disciples and other groups from across the country have had a transformative week or weekend at Urban Mission Inn.

We are very excited that Urban Mission Inn is taking a new step by partnering with “Be the Neighbor!” We are now “Be the Neighbor at Urban Mission Inn.” Be the Neighbor is a Disciples and United Church of Christ Service and Justice Learning organization. It grew out of two organizations, Connect Ministries (with a 9 year history of this work) and Reach Beyond Mission (with a 10 year history of this work). The two organizations joined in the last 2 years to become “Be the Neighbor” with their office located in Ft. Worth, Texas. We are working with the Rev. Allison Lanza, Co-Executive Director of Be the Neighbor.

With Urban Mission Inn on board, “Be the Neighbor” now has 15 sites in both cities and rural areas across the country. Partnering with Be the Neighbor will provide enhanced programing that begins with leaders before a group arrives and continues with follow-up after the group returns home to respond to needs in their own community.

Be the Neighbor provides trained summer interns who do program leadership for each group at each site, allowing the adult sponsors the opportunity to experience the time and deepen relationship with their group.

The purpose of Be the Neighbor trips is for groups to both learn about the issues and experience outreach in the community they visit, AND to explore those issues in their own community back home and plan with their church how they can respond to the needs in their own communities. Different themes and community needs are embodied across the Be the Neighbor sites, such as hunger, urban poverty, rural poverty, refugee ministry, anti-racism, disaster relief, etc. Groups can do a “Connect” trip or a “Reach” trip, or perhaps in subsequent years put the two together for a deeper understanding of the issues at hand. For instance, “Be the Neighbor at Urban Mission Inn, St. Louis” is a Race and Reconciliation Connect Site, and “Be the Neighbor, Tulsa” is a Race and Reconciliation Reach Site. The two will complement each other.

We at Union Avenue are so excited to partner with Be the Neighbor, in order to deepen and broaden the impact of Urban Mission Inn.

To explore “Be the Neighbor at Urban Mission Inn” and all the other sites, go to www.betheneighbor.org All registration for programs is done through the Be the Neighbor website.

Jacque Foster, Chair of Outreach & Justice Ministry,
Union Avenue Christian Church, St. Louis