I sent the following to my mailing lists: USA; Canada; Australia; New Zealand; UK & Ireland:
Our community is being torn apart by suicide. I buried a mother of 5 last week who had taken her own life. I attended the funeral of 18 year old Michael who hanged himself. His funeral took place at the top end of the street where our church is. At the same time as this funeral was taking place, there was another one at the bottom end of our street of another 18 year old who had also hanged himself. Here were two young men, one from the Protestant community and one from the Catholic community, both 18, both hanged themselves, both unknown to each other, both buried at the same time from the same street (although opposite sides of the dividing wall), and here we are as a church right in the middle.
Our response to these and other suicides is to launch a 7 week "SEE YOU AT THE CROSS" campaign. Here's how it works:
Week 1 Encourage as many as possible to enter in by adding the words "SEE YOU AT THE CROSS" to the end of texts messages; Facebook messages; emails etc etc; Do this for 7 weeks. This has been picking up momentum.
Week 2 Encourage as many churches to come on board to formally add their name to the campaign.
Order Car Stickers; posters; Tee Shirts; Baseball Caps with 
Week 3 Put posters around the community on billboards etc and in shops.
Week 4 Put initial ad in newspapers
Week 5 Put main Full Page Ad's in 5 newspapers
Week 6 Put up large cross on site between the gates
Week 7 Meet at the Cross on Saturday 6 November 12 noon
30 minute service "There's a Better Way"
30 minute service "There's a Better Way"
Evening Rally at New Life City Church in City LIFE Centre
Please pray for and support this campaign.
If you would like to order a baseball cap or Tee Shirt with our logo in support of this campaign, please let me know. We can get these done here at home and also within the USA.
Jack
1 comment:
"Our community is being torn apart by suicide" ? I believe the community is coming together rather than being torn apart as you state. Suicide as you may be aware does not pick and choose thus leading to, what I have witnessed, a community now gathering pace in it's fight with governing bodies to tackle the issue. May I also ask as a non christian/religious member of the community, will the "See you at the cross" gathering discuss the real issues like social deprivation, depression, lack of funds for agencies & hospitals to tackle the problem ? Maybe an idea to gather a mass of people at a governmental building like Stormount, City Hall or Belfast Trust HQ at Knockbracken ? That, I believe, would have more of an impact than meeting at a peaceline.
Post a Comment