A significant part of the mission of this community is to work towards reconciling all things back to their Creator. We believe that comes in four main ways: person to God, person to person, person to self, and person to creation. In Anderson, we seek to fulfill this mission in part through Christian Community Development, by being in the community and living alongside others. We have as our example Christ, who “became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood,” (John 1:14, The Message). We also realize that the values of a community involved in Christian Community Development can be new and require instruction and experiential learning.  For those who seek to be more involved in this style of urban ministry, we want to provide. Thus, The Mercy House’s Internship is offered, giving participants a brief, but immersive, experience into the world of incarnational urban ministry.

Obscure acronyms aside, This is a roughly three-month intensive program in which participants will move into a house on Anderson’s urban west side and work within the church and its affiliate organizations. Accompanying this service portion are a series of thrice-weekly classes concerning both spiritual formation and Christian community development taught by church staff as well as other ministry and community development leaders from all over central Indiana.

It is a summer that will challenge you, stretch you, and push you to think about your faith and how it relates to the urban poor in entirely new ways.