Following Christ’s example, Immanuel Presbyterian Church reaches out to human need in our local community and throughout the world. 

Spotlight on Mission                  Putting Faith to Work

Reaching Out in Our Community:

Immanuel is part of a coalition of lower east side Milwaukee churches called INTERCHANGE that came together in 1970 to address a variety of neighbor­hood and community concerns through cooperative efforts.  Immanuel members regularly reach out to the community by volunteering at THE GATHERING meal program, an inner-city Saturday lunch program, and helping to build homes through HABITAT FOR HUMANITY.  Immanuel also participates, through the Milwaukee Presbytery, in the Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee, which formulates a variety of task forces to address community-wide concerns of faith, justice, and social well being.

Reaching Out Around the World

Immanuel Presbyterian Church reaches around the world in its mission program -- both through financial support and personal involvement.

Alternative Christmas Market

Each December an “Alternative Christmas Market” gives members and friends an opportunity to purchase gifts that will assist local service agencies and international mission programs.  Shoppers select from gifts such as a flock of chicks from Heifer International or a kitchen sink through Habitat for Humanity and fill out a gift card to the receipient that tells what has been given in his or her name. These gifts represent an alternative to the commercialism of the season, and tangibly help bring the good news of Jesus' birth to a hungry and hurting world.  Last year over $38,000 was generated by this project, all going directly to the agencies and programs represented.

Mission Trips

From 2006 to 2008, four Immanuel work teams traveled to the Gulf Coast region to help with Hurricane Katrina rebuilding efforts. The spring 2008 group worked with Habitat for Humanity to help rebuild homes in East New Orleans.

During the mid 1990's, Immanuel Church committed mission support to Mwandi, Zambia, both through financial resources and mission work trips. This support helped build a chapel at a medical mission. In the summer of 1995, four Immanuel members were commissioned in our sanctuary by Archbishop Desmond Tutu to travel to Mwandi. Immanuel members have traveled to Mwandi regularly for over ten years.  In the summer of 2008, a group of eighteen Immanuel members and friends will return to Mwandi to renew connections with friends there and to help with the work of the Mwandi Christian Hospital and the new Mwandi High School. 

Nine Immanuel youth and three adults participated in an “Inward Bound” mission project in July of 2005.  The participants helped build homes in Cleveland through Habitat for Humanity and committed to “live simply so that others may simply live.”  They gave up unnecessary luxuries and distractions for the week to focus on the neighborhoods in which they worked.  A similar group visited Lexington, Kentucky in 2003. 

In the summer of 2004, six members of Immanuel Church and thirty others from churches in the Milwaukee Presbytery visited Iquitos, Peru.  Health care, education, and construction teams worked in several villages in the area. 

Additionally, Immanuel Church contributes to medical mission work in Malawi and Miraj, India. Our mission dollars also support the mission programs of the Presbyterian Church, USA, locally, nationally, and internationally.