The Houston's First family is no stranger to coming together to make a difference in our community in Jesus' name. From churchwide efforts like GO Houston to our day-to-day ministries at our Faith Centers, our church has always embraced opportunities to share the love of Jesus while meeting the practical needs of our neighbors.

Months ago, our church was contacted by Love Has No Limits, a nonprofit organization that works to provide sustainable solutions to community problems, about being a cornerstone partner for an upcoming citywide day of service known as 1DayHouston. After prayerfully considering the opportunity, we jumped at the chance to unite together with hundreds of other churches and ministries across Houston to love and serve our city.

“We want to be a church that cares about the specific needs across the city of Houston whether it’s the need for foster care, refugee relief and empowerment, or even poverty alleviation,” says Minister of Evangelism and Mobilization Marcus Rodriguez. “At the heart of it, we said YES to 1DayHouston because we wanted to provide an opportunity for Houston’s First members to learn about these issues and engage the needs that are before us as a church and as a city.”

On Sat, Apr 29, all Houston's First campuses participated in this citywide event as we served the homeless, provided food for the hungry, threw block parties for kids, cleaned up neighborhoods, and so much more. To create space for these various service projects to take place, each campus identified sites or “Serve Centers” where church members and others from the community could spend the morning making a difference.

“Our Serve Centers were selected by identifying ministry partnerships that we have across the city and asking if they would be willing to collaborate with us for 1DayHouston,” says Marcus. “These are local ministry partners that we love and know well and have ministry relationships with. In addition to that, some of our Serve Centers were developed and coordinated through existing Houston’s First ministries - such as our Faith Centers, apartment ministries, and others.”

One such Serve Center was Prestige Learning Institute, a ministry partner of Houston’s First that educates, equips, and ministers to immigrant and refugee families through various programs.

“A team of Houston’s First volunteers were doing gardening work at their building when a man from the community walked by and asked about what was going on,” explained Marcus. “After the team explained to him the purpose of them being there, he shared that he was looking for a church. They gave him information about Houston’s First en Español at The Loop Campus and he ended up staying and serving with the team the whole day”

After serving together to bless our city, we gathered with other volunteers on Sat, Apr 29, or Sun, Apr 30, for a Celebration Concert at the Toyota Center with artists Parker McCollum, Kari Jobe, Tim McGraw, Tori Kelly, and more! An invitation was given to the thousands in attendance to take their next steps in their relationship with Jesus Christ — perhaps for the very first time!

While Love Has No Limits will be moving on to other cities for future 1Day events, Houston’s First has no plans on slowing down when it comes to engaging our members with community-changing events and initiatives. From large church-wide events to individual Life Bible Studies going out into the community on a weekly basis, our goal in all local missions endeavors is to fulfill the Great Commission as we share the love of Jesus Christ with our neighbors and friends.

“1DayHouston gave us the opportunity to tell our members the why behind the what,” says Missions Pastor Clark Reynolds. “They didn’t just do projects, they did projects that have real people behind them. They can do this on a regular basis with our church and with our ministry partners.”

1DayHouston By The Numbers:

• 32 Houston’s First Serve Centers
• 1,016 Houston’s First Volunteers

Beyond 1DayHouston

Looking to get more involved in local missions through Houston’s First? Through our ongoing efforts at our Faith Center-Spring Branch and Faith Center-Harwin, we reach thousands of Houstonians on a yearly basis as we meet both their physical and spiritual needs 52 weeks out of the year. Here are a few statistics from 2022 about their missional impact:

• 45K+ families received aid (clothing, food, bill assistance, etc.)
• 2.8MM pounds of food were distributed
• 12K+ Gospel conversations were had
• 1K+ salvations were witnessed