Flourish Campaign 2025
Help others flourish, pray together--and find your flourishing, too! (Jer. 29:7)
Imagine you’ve just been laid off from work for the first time in your professional life. You have a monthly mortgage or lease to pay, loans to pay off, and all the usual expenses. Your prospects for finding work are slim, as other employers are cutting staff.
What are you going to do?
And more importantly, how are you doing?
That’s “Anna’s” story–and many like her in the Metro DC area. While she waited in line at our food pantry, she told me how she and her husband were now suddenly unemployed, fearful about their future and uncertain how to provide for their family.
Each week, over 1,000 vulnerable residents of Arlington receive food from our pantry. And in the last three months alone, the number of recipients has increased over 30%. Some have been coming to us for years, used to living on the social and economic margins. Many others like Anna, just started visiting. All of them struggle with shame and despair, just like you and I would. But all are welcome at the food pantry–a place where they can receive help with dignity and find hope on the road to flourishing.
At our Lead Pastor Fellowship gathering in March, we talked about people like Anna in our own churches. The pastors shared practical ways how they were caring for people in and beyond their congregations who were anxious about employment. We prayed for them, and for one another as well. Pastoral care can weigh heavy on one's heart, and it's good to have peers to support and encourage you.
Our Mission
In a nutshell, that's why we're here. Arlington Bridge Builders believes that if we help unite the Church in Arlington to work towards a common vision of flourishing for all, and if we enable churches to work together in their shared areas of concern, we can help Arlington experience true flourishing–or at least a taste of it, this side of heaven.
That mission is based on God's call to his people while living in a foreign land: "seek the flourishing (shalom) of the city where I have sent you, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its flourishing you will flourish" (Jer. 29:7). From this verse, we organize our mission into three ministry streams of Community Service, Prayer, and Church Collaboration. When all three streams are flowing in the same direction, flourishing begins.
Help Make A Difference
You can be part of that vision. If you live, work or worship in Arlington–or have a heart for the community–we invite you to make a difference in the lives of our neighbors. The “Flourish Campaign” is an effort to raise $50,000 to support the expansion of ministry and staffing necessary for our shared vision of flourishing, where funds will support key initiatives in each of our three ministry streams:
Community Service, Prayer, and Church Collaboration.
1. For the ministry stream of Community Service, we seek to raise $35,000 to help cover the costs of providing a food pantry for the growing number of people facing food insecurity—a 31% increase since January.
The Need:
Increasing costs of housing, utilities and living expenses leave less money for food.
Job insecurity and unemployment threaten income sources.
Dramatic increase in number of people seeking assistance at our food pantry.
The Solution:
Develop means to recruit more volunteers to obtain, organize, and distribute food at our pantry.
Repair the exterior of the trailer and widen the entrance ramp in order to improve the experience of obtaining food.
Install an awning and pavers to create a hospitality area to welcome neighbors with coffee and books, including Spanish Bibles which people have been eager to receive (see photo at top of page).
2. For the ministry stream of Prayer, we seek $5,000 to create new guides to unite people to pray “on site with insight” for the Arlington community.
The Need:
In Jeremiah 29, God calls all his people--not only leaders--to pray together on behalf of the city where he sent them, so that we depend on him to redeem and restore our community.
Many people are not aware of community needs or how to pray “for the city.”
The Solution:
Expand our existing prayer guides to include information about various sectors of Arlington, so that people can pray with greater insight and conviction.
Develop materials for prayer tours, to encourage people to pray on-site for the seven focus areas in our monthly guide: Churches and Non-profit agencies, Education, Health, Public Safety, Government, Economy, and Arts & Recreation.
3. For the ministry stream of Church Collaboration, we seek $10,000 to create and support fellowships for Lead Pastors and other church ministry leaders, in order to connect, encourage and resource each other, and foster unity among our congregations.
The Need:
Churches often act in silos, disconnected from other churches.
Jesus longs to see unity in the Body of Christ, such that the world takes notice of our love for another and our community (John 17:20-21).
Church members are very supportive of efforts to get to know and serve with other churches.
The Solution:
Support the monthly fellowship for Lead Pastors, which includes a complimentary meal, fellowship, prayer and discussion.
Create fellowships of other ministry leaders, e.g. worship, youth, children’s, mercy and outreach, so they could similarly develop and deepen relationships with their peers.
Create ministry partnerships where members of various churches can serve together.
Would you partner with us in our vision for flourishing?
If so, please click the "Give Today" button to contribute to the Flourish Campaign.
Whether you give $50, $100, $500 or more, please join us in prayer that our churches would be so united in love for one another and our neighbors, that the world would take note. And as Jesus prayed, they would believe the Father sent the Son (John 17:21) so we could experience true flourishing, together. Thank you!
For The Flourishing Of Arlington,
Scott Seaton
Executive Director
Arlington Bridge Builders
P.S. I hope you’ll consider supporting the Flourish Campaign today, as part of our broader effort to help Arlington Flourish. If you'd like to learn more about our other initiatives—like our afterschool program for at-risk students, English conversation classes, citizenship classes, cultural events, etc—please explore our website.
