Semper Vita

Faith in Action

"...continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling."    Paul in Philippians 2:12

One of the groups I try to attend regularly is KIROS, a group of business people who meet for breakfast once a month in various locations in the Greater Seattle area. I attend the Bellevue meeting. KIROS consists of mostly Christians who seek to do business in such a way that it demonstrates their faith in Jesus and brings honor and glory to God. Don't worry, they don't go around preaching and being "weird," but they work in such a way that demonstrates their faith in action.

One of my friends, Darrell, owns his own business and is passionate about living out his faith at work - both in the way he treats his employees and in the way he runs his business. He's known for saying, "do what you say you will do." Darrell has trusted his business to God. At times, he's referred potential customers to another business rather than compromising his principles. Good for you, Darrell!

The Apostle Paul tells us in Philippians 2 that we need to "work out our salvation in fear and trembling." This applies to all people who believe in Jesus. It's nice to do this on a Sunday morning as part of a Christian clique, but it is far more important to do this visibly, every day as we live and work in our business, volunteer in the community, attend school and live in the neighborhood.

Fear and trembling is not about being so scared of God that we are terrified to do something wrong lest he'd slap us. It also does not mean we are trying to earn our way into heaven or into God's favor. 

Working out our salvation means to finish it through spiritual growth and development. It's a process that needs to be worked out daily, especially in our every day life. It's easy to look good for an hour a week on Sunday morning. Working out your salvation or faith refers to living our faith and growing in our relationship with God. It's a process of humility, service, perseverance, and spiritual growth.  

Only through faith in Jesus can any of us have right standing before God. As a result of that right relationship, we continue to work out how to live our faith in a way that brings honor and glory to God. Salvation and faith in this context is all about our relationship with God. And, just like any relationship, it requires work! We have to work out our faith because a life of faith is very different from our regular, everyday-without-God life.  To most of us who have jumped into this life with Jesus, it all feels, well, upside down. It's not about power, money, beauty or fame - but about respect, servanthood, gentleness, love, peace and hope. It's the life Jesus lived while he was on earth.

In order for people to rediscover the real Jesus, his people need to live in such a way that those who do not yet know him can see him in our lives, as we live out our faith in action. 

That's our goal - living our faith through acts of volunteering in a way that shows Jesus. Are you living your faith in action? Looking for a way to connect with others living this way? Please join the movement of volunteers and partners...so we can do more good together.

Semper Vita now on Facebook and Twitter

Now there are more ways to stay current with Semper Vita and to participate with us in the online community. 

Are you on Facebook? Please check out our Facebook page and join the community. 

Love pictures? We posted an album on our Facebook page of our Northwest Ministry Conference launch in March, 2010. Like the page? You can help us out by signing up!

On Twitter? Please consider subscribing to our Twitter feed for the latest on us and our partners.

Do you Twitter? If you do, follow us and we'll follow you back.

Semper Vita needs your help!

The dream is becoming a reality. Semper Vita is happening. It is exciting! At the Northwest Ministry Conference it was clear that the idea is timely. Churches are ready to  do good in their communities and would love to connect with others. Semper Vita’s software will help them do just that.


What we need from you
It takes a lot of people, prayers, partners and money to make this happen. Would you join us as we seek to help churches be the church in their communities? Would you commit to one or more of the following:


Pray for Semper Vita:
Pray for the software development. Pray that the right partners will sign up. Pray that God will bring us volunteers. Pray that we would continue to work toward making this dream a reality. Pray for financial provision. Pray that God will bless Semper Vita for His glory.

Finances:
We need money to reach the thousands of people in our communities with the love of Jesus. Whether $5, $500 or $50,00 your donation will help us to finish the software, to reach out to potential partners and to move Semper Vita forward as an organization. Would you support us? To donate please go to our donate page.

People:
We need people to help us make this happen. Are you a videographer? We could use your help. Do you like marketing, administrative support, finance, sales? We could use your help. There’s stuff to do for everyone.  Please join us and help us make this happen. Contact us to volunteer as part of Semper Vita.

Partners:
We need churches and non-profits to partner with us to impact the community for good. Please consider partnering with us to reach our communities with the Good News. 

An Easter Egg Hunt and Feeding the Homeless on Easter Weekend

How was your Easter? Several of us from Semper Vita joined with partner churches this Easter. It was great! We had fun and we did some good together.

A pre-Easter egg hunt

On Saturday, we joined Life at the Ridge fort their annual Redmond Ridge community Easter egg hunt at Rosa Parks Elementary. We arrived at 8 am on a very cold and somewhat windy morning. We joined Pastor Josh and his wife Tanya and about 20 others from Life at the Ridge. Together we put out 7000 eggs, placed signs, set up the gift tent and prepared the gym in the school for the festivities. Hundreds of Redmond Ridge kids and parents started arriving at about 9:45 am. The Easter egg  hunt activities started out in the gym followed by a kid frenzy in the egg-filled fields at 10:20 am. Those eggs disappeared in a matter of minutes. One little boy in the area I watched, filled his bucket in under a minute. This was race for some kids. The eggs were filled with good stuff too - candy, little stuffed animals (for the little ones), See’s gift certificates, cash and more. Wow! After the hunt and games, the crew cleaned up. Helping out at the community Easter egg hunt was fun!

Easter at Occidental Square

On Sunday, after attending services, a few Semper Vita folks joined Missio Lux at Occidental Square in Seattle for a special luncheon prepared for the homeless population. A great meal of ham, potatoes, salad and rolls followed by cake was served to the men and women who came by. The line looped around the square when lunch was ready. Tables and chairs were set up for the people at Occidental Square. The Missio Lux people and friends joined the locals for lunch and had great conversations with the people at Occidental Square. Great stories are being told of changed lives...Several accepted Jesus as their Savior. One man was healed from his anger and received peace. Others just enjoyed a good meal and conversation. 

It was a different Easter for me but it was great. Instead of the Easter brunch tradition at my mom’s we spent time with people in the community. At the end of the day we shared stories of our Easter adventures as we gathered for our Easter dinner.

Semper Vita Signs Partner at the NW Ministry Conference!

On Saturday, March 20, Dan signed his church up to be a Semper Vita partner. He is the outreach pastor and really looks forward to partnering together. Thanks Dan! Welcome to you and your church. We look forward to working with you and making a difference together!

Dan and his church join the ten other churches and non-profits that have already partnered with Semper Vita. While we wait for the finishing touches on the software, we will be working with our partners to start impacting our local communities. 

At the Northwest Ministry Conference, 25 other churches and non-profit organizations indicated interest in partnership. If you, your church or non-profit are interested to learn more about partnering, please feel free to contact us. We look forward to talking with you to explore how we can support you and help you partner with others to reach your local community for Jesus.

Thank you! Our launch was a success

Thank you to everyone who stopped by the booth, staffed the booth and for all those people cheering us on behind the scenes. Also a big "thank you" to all the people who have been supporting us in prayer! The launch went very well. 

Tamara showing Laurie Bunnell and Tamara Buchan from Missio Lux a preview of our social software. Cindy is helping a person fill out a card.

Booth traffic and 5 lucky winners

In total we had over 200 people stop by our booth. About 150 people filled out a card for our $500 give-away. We had 5 winners each of whom won $100! We gave away Semper Vita pens and brochures to everyone who came by the booth.

Jeanne accepts her $100. She was the first to come claim her prize. 

Cindy hands Dan his $100. He was the last to come claim his prize. 

We gave away lots of water bottles.

Additionally, we gave away a Semper Vita water bottle to the first 100 registrants that filled out a drawing card. Our water bottles were such a hit that people were asking for them and offered to buy them. One college student took a dented one just so she could have a “cool” Semper Vita water bottle.

All in all, the Semper Vita launch was a hit!

A big "thank you" to our volunteers and others

I also want to thank everyone who helped us prior to the launch. Some of us have put in thousands of hours of volunteer time to get us this far. So a heartfelt "thank you" to: Cindy, Ed, Tamara, Jeff, Ardis, Dina, Fred, and Alex. An additional "thank you" goes out to Jacqui Lott who's designed our look and to Jason Savino who is creating our website application. We could not have done it without you. Thank you for making this happen!

Semper Vita Launches Today!

Today is the day! We are announcing Semper Vita to the world. 

The booth is ready! Bring on the people and the partners! Today we start the process of creating a volunteer community made up of non-profits, churches and individuals. Together we will do more serious good.

At the show, we will be giving away five $100 bills to winners of our drawing. We hope that each winner will use the money to do serious good in their community. Hopefully, they will share their stories on the Semper Vita website and inspire others to go do more serious good too.

We will be presenting six workshops at the conference - four of them directly relate to Semper Vita:

1. “Missional Volunteering: Let’s Take the Church out of it’s Box” - about intentionally and missionally volunteering to show Jesus’ love in action.
2. “You Want Me To Do What?” Missional Living Your Way” - about connecting with others to demonstrate Jesus’ love in action.
3. “Improve Your Missional Impact: Connecting Churches to Reach the Least of These in our Communities” - about churches and non-profits partnering to reach their communities with the love of Jesus.
4. “I Want To Follow But What Am I Supposed To Do?” - about discovering your wiring, purpose and focus.

Semper Vita is the first organization to combine missional volunteering to intentional connecting and personal discovery. We desire to help each individual to live missionally intentionally. 

We also are pioneering the idea to partner with churches and non-profits to create a missional volunteering community that demonstrates the love of Christ through action. 

Semper Vita is about providing quality and tailored volunteer opportunities rather than providing large quantities of volunteer possibilities. 

Partner with us today! If you or your organization are in the Greater Seattle area, contact us to be part of the Semper Vita partner network.

Setting Up the Semper Vita Booth at the NW Ministry Conference 2010

Today we are setting up our booth and tomorrow we launch Semper Vita. It's finally here! Here are a few pictures of us setting up our first booth. Enjoy!

Our first order of business: Hanging the Semper Vita banner at the Northwest Ministry Conference 2010. Looking good so far!

 

Fred is delivering the supplies we need for the booth. Lots to bring in.

Setting up the display tables. Thanks Sally for loaning us the tables.

Henriet is showing off the use of the mailbox to her mother Dina who was one of the booth workers. The mailbox was used for the Semper Vita brochures. 

We are ready to go!

Thank you to Tamara, Cindy, Fred, Dina and Ardis for helping set up!

One Month Away From Our Launch!

We are nearing the date when we will see Semper Vita become a reality. This is so exciting! After three years of dreaming, planning and working, the day is getting close. Next month, we will have a booth at the Northwest Ministry Conference in Redmond. We’ve ordered banners and booth wear. We have also ordered pens and water bottles to give away. Now we have materials to print and partner packets to assemble.

At the show, people can discover how the can do more serious good by partnering with Semper Vita. We will have presentations that illustrate how Semper Vita will work with volunteers. We will also make clear how we will partner with churches and non-profits.

These are full and intense days. The software won’t be fully ready and that’s frustrating, but we are moving forward in faith. God knows how he wants this to play out. We have prayed diligently and worked steadily.

Watch for us next month!

Following the Semper Vita Vision

It is amazing to see an idea slowly but steadily become a reality. Our vision remains the same. We want to partner with churches and non-profits to impact every community for Christ. We want to see everyone experiencing life through service in community. To make this happen, we need partners and we need volunteers!

A small team of people have been giving hundreds, and some thousands, of hours to make this vision a reality. Semper Vita has been a labor of love. Why do we invest our time, energy and money in this endeavor? It's all about sharing the love of Jesus with those who do not yet know him. It's exciting that now, as we are nearing our launch date, more people are stepping up to volunteer to make this vision come to life. 

As a team, we believe that we are following God and answering his call to produce a ministry that allows people to easily and simply impact their communities through intentional volunteering and connecting. Semper Vita is one of the ways that God wants to reconcile people to himself. It will take all his people intentionally and missionally volunteering and connecting.

Jesus made it very clear: People will know that we are his disciples by our love for each other, for God and for our neighbors. How can we show that love? We believe it’s through spending time with people - in relationship and through serving together.

Won't you join us?