Mission Partners

Throughout the school year Westminster works with the Lowcountry Food Bank to send backpacks, filled with food, home with hungry students. While free and reduced breakfast and lunches are available on weekdays during the school year, many students had little to eat on the weekends. The backpacks return each Monday morning and are filled by volunteers at our Wonderful Wednesday meal.

Empoweher is a safe place for CofC women to ask questions about God, life, purpose, and anything else all while growing together as people and as a community. All women are welcome to join us as we pursue deeper relationship with God and one another.

Ask Questions about God, life, or purpose. Seek answers in a safe and open community. Live life well. Changed by God to change the world.

WPC volunteers mentor children, assist teachers, refurbish playgrounds, and provide much needed supplies at our nearby early childhood learning center. We seek to fill whatever need they may have.

Metanoia is a movement of people rooted in faith. They invest in neighborhood assets to build leaders, establish quality housing and generate economic development.  Pushing forward into new relationships with God and one another to create strong communities.

Neighbors Together has brought dignity and hope to the Lowcountry since 1983. In 2021, the organization (formerly Tricounty Family Ministries) changed its name to reflect the transformation we have seen when people come together to help each other. After all, we are neighbors together.

A team of volunteers serves a hot meal at Neighbors Together the third Wednesday of every month. To volunteer, click here.

Almost every day that the church office is open, we provide bags of food for emergency assistance. These bags include nutritious pantry staples such as rice, pasta, cereal, and canned vegetables. When you add it all up, our Westminster food pantry has given out almost TWO TONS of groceries during the past twelve months. If you put a price tag on these donations, it would total up to approximately $7000 in groceries, provided by our members.

Due to the current economic conditions, we do not expect the number of individuals and families seeking assistance to shrink anytime soon. To keep the emergency food pantry stocked and ready for whoever walks through our doors, we depend on the generosity and ongoing support of members within this congregation. If you would like to make a donation of food to the pantry, you may drop off groceries on Sunday mornings or anytime the church office is open. The pantry has an ongoing need for all non-perishable food items and all donations will be appreciated and put to immediate use.

The Mission of Charleston’s Hands of Christ is to bring Presbyterian congregations together to share God’s love with children in need. For more information or to volunteer go to our Hands of Christ website www.hoc-sc.org

Since 1875 Thornwell Home for Children in Clinton, South Carolina has been making a difference in the lives of children and youth in need. Our women’s circles “adopt” individual children to care for remembering birthdays, graduations etc. Our youth groups participate in improvement and refurbishment projects at Thornwell, and our entire congregation supports Thornwell through our Easter and Christmas Eve offerings. For more information on Thornwell and how you can help: www.thornwell.org

BELIEF

Water Mission is a nonprofit Christian engineering ministry providing sustainable safe water solutions, through a Christian worldview perspective, to people in developing countries and disasters. We approach all our work with a sense of urgency and a commitment to excellence. Our faith and our belief in the sanctity of life compel us to develop and implement the best technologies and community development programs so that, through our work, God will be honored and glorified and lives will be transformed for eternity. Water Mission serves all people regardless of age, gender, race or faith.

Westminster’s mission relationship with Water Mission has been primarily with the annual Walk for Water.  We are continuing to develop and grow that relationship through assisting with projects as individuals and in groups as well as providing financial support.

Why We Walk 

Westminster is proud to be a founding member of the Russian Mission Network. Working with our partners in the United States and in the Russian Federation, we share Christ’s love in mutually supported missions in partnership with our sister church, The Church of the Transfiguration.

Mission in Russia

In addition to special offerings and gifts, we regularly support Ellen and Al Smith in their work as PC(USA) mission workers in the Russian Federation.

Since the end of Communist rule in 1991, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has significantly deepened its relationships with the historic Christian churches in Russia. Our missionaries Ellen and Al Smith are assisting churches as they emerge from almost 75 years of state-sponsored atheism, repression, exile, and martyrdom. In this period of renewal there are many ways “to come alongside” our brothers and sisters in Christ in Russia , including:

Support for sharing the Good News through our partner churches
“Twinning” or partnering with a Russian congregation
Summer camps for children and youth
Support for Christian day schools
Short-term theological education at seminaries and Bible institutes
Support for Russian students in seminary
Development of children’s ministries
Support for orphanages
HIV/AIDS education and prevention
Support of refugees
Strengthening anti-racism programs
Drug and alcohol abuse education with OPORA, a Christian recovery program

 

Mission in Guatemala

We partner with Philip and Bacilia Beisswenger, who have been working with the National Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Guatemala (IENPG) since 2010. Together they facilitate partnerships between U.S. and IENPG churches, coordinating visits and mission projects. They have also planted a new Presbyterian church about four hours’ drive north of Guatemala City, in Cobán, where they live. Philip coordinates development of Cobán’s Presbyterian Complex, a project that combines K-12 education, indigenous theological training, evangelism and social outreach. Bacilia helps host visiting groups in Cobán and “holds down the fort” with their three children, Matthew, Manuel and Estefana. Philip is a minister member of the Presbytery of Middle Tennessee. Bacilia is a native of Honduras. This is a ministry that welcomes teams from U.S. congregations and that models effective cross-cultural partnership.

At the invitation of the IENPG the Beisswengers have come alongside Presbyterians in Guatemala to strengthen a witness to the Gospel and to develop a ministry of equipping indigenous believers for leadership and ministry in a growing church.