Around the world many things are broken. Our vision at flatirons is "To bring the awesome life of Christ to a lost and broken world." As followers of Christ, it is one of our tasks to share the love God has for us with words and with our actions. We know that the needs in this world can, at times, be overwhelming. However, we must not let this sense of being overwhelmed drive us to despair. Rather it must drive us to engage. At flatirons we have chosen to engage with the world by developing a limited number of deep and meaningful relationships with organizations based on the following principles:

• Shared Values
• Focus on community-owned, sustainable models
• A mutual desire for close involvement
• Alignment of our giftedness as a church with opportunities and passions
• A strong sense of stewardship

Our desire is to partner with likeminded organizations in order to be used by God in His work of transforming lives... including our own. It is our hope to develop partnerships in which we are:

"...delighted to share with you not only the Gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us." 1 Thessalonians 2:8.

Click here to go to the short-term team blog.

Click here to make a donation to a specific individual going on a short-term trip. If you would like to make a donation to the flatirons general fund, go to the flatirons financial page.

Perspectives

What is your perspective? Depending on where you stand, things look different. Part of the reason art is so compelling is that artists are gifted with the ability to present things from unique perspectives, often leading to new insights.

In addition to visual perspectives, we also have other perspectives, or ways we look at and understand the world we live in. As Believers, our relationship with Christ shapes our perspective. Other things that also shape our perspective are our families, our culture and our education. All of these things contribute to how we “see” or understand the world we live in. Here at Flatirons, we are also in the business of perspective. If you’ve been around here for any amount of time, you have surely heard that God loves us and does not hate us. For some that is a new perspective or way of understanding how God sees us.

In our ongoing effort to understand God better and live the lives He designed us for, we will be hosting a course called Perspectives. It is a 15 week course that examines the big picture of what God has been doing over the past thousands of years. But it is much more than that. The course is also designed to help us find our place in the Story God has been writing – really to help us get closer to seeing things from God’s perspective and joining with Him where He is at work.

Will you join us?

FAQ

• What is the class format each week?
  Each week will feature a different key speaker, worship, insightful articles, group and individual activities and snacks. The instructor list and class schedule is online here.
• What are the homework expectations?
  The class is offered at 3 levels: Key Readings, Certificate or Credit. We recommend taking the class for Certificate level or higher in order to get the most out of this opportunity.
  Certificate Level: 30+ pages of readings, 15 written reviews, 5 personal responses, 1 project
• What if I need to miss a week?
  If you need to miss 1 or 2 classes, you can download the audio of the lesson and submit your homework electronically. In order to earn a certificate you cannot miss more than 2 classes.

For more information, email missions@flatironschurch.com or call the church office at 303-664-5524.

At the end of 2009, flatirons entered into a partnership with an organization working among the urban poor in Mexico City. In cooperation with Servant Partners (www.servantpartners.org), a Mexican NGO named ConeXion Mosáico works in a community called Chimalhuacan. According to Geneva Global, in 2008 over 1 billion people (a third of the world's urban population) lived in slums - areas of substandard housing that lack adequate water, city services, healthcare, education, and other basic human needs. Members of the ConeXion Mosáico hail from such places as Switzerland, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, El Salvador, and Mexico. They live in Chimalhuacan and have developed, in cooperation with community leaders from Chimalhuacan, several projects: Youth as Agents of Change, a community health initiative, an initiative to develop healthy children, a holistic church planting initiative, and a number of initiatives to help provide better livelihoods. While all these initiatives are aimed at the transformation of Chimalhuacan, the hope is that each initiative is being carefully evaluated and documented in order to develop templates that can be effectively used to transform slums around the world.

Download the Information Packet for Mexico. (pdf)

Download the ConeXion Mosaico Portfolio. (pdf)

For more information, email missions@flatironschurch.com or call the church office at 303-664-5524.

iEmpathize

iEmpathize is an Arts and Advocacy organization that creates opportunities for people to explore and engage in issues of injustice. iEmpathize is a pathway to connect people and resources to needs around the world. Their initial efforts are focused on ending child sex slavery.

flatirons has been involved with iEmpathize from their early days and through a growing cooperative effort among Boulder County churches working with partners in Mexico City to help end human trafficking there.

For information about iEmpathize and how to help, visit iempathize.org.

Outside the Walls

You have heard about flatirons people serving in our community and around the world and maybe you wondered why we do that or how to get involved? Jim Burgen explains why we move outside the walls of flatirons, Ron Barnes shares about our involvement with international partners and Andy Wineman details our involvement with local community partners. Watch Jim's video above.

More Video from Outside the Walls

Andy Wineman - Local Community Partners (watch video here)

Ron Barnes - International Community Partners (watch video here)

Flatirons’ partnership in South Sudan through Life in Abundance – LIA (lifeinabundance.org) began in the Spring of 2012. LIA works in several East African countries with a strong focus on developing local leadership and local ownership of initiatives. They meet some of East Africa’s toughest challenges, including HIV/AIDS, orphans and vulnerable children, refugees and internally displaced people and famine. Their model is to work closely with local churches or in helping to develop local churches to address the challenges in their communities. This is also how LIA works in South Sudan, which gained its independence from Sudan on July 9, 2011. In South Sudan, there are critical needs related to the ending of civil war and becoming a new nation. There is very little infrastructure such as roads, schools, and healthcare and the systems to put these things in place. LIA has invited Flatirons into their work, alongside the people of South Sudan, to meet some of these needs, focusing on healthcare and education in some very remote areas. In the early stages or our partnership, because of difficulty in reaching these areas, we will have very limited opportunities for direct involvement. Our hope is that over time, we will have more opportunities to visit our friends in South Sudan. We look forward to learning and growing together with the people of South Sudan as we continue to understand God’s Truth and Grace.

Since 2007, flatirons has been in partnership with a NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) that focuses most of its attention on community development in Afghanistan. Afghanistan ranks 181st out of 182 countries on the UN Human Development Index (the UN HDI measures life expectancy, education, and standard of living). This organization focuses on transformational development through initiatives in health care, education, and economics. flatirons’ primary involvement with this organization rests in its focus on working with returning Afghan refugees and IDPs (Internally Displaced People). Since 2002, more than five million Afghan refugees have returned to their home country, increasing the population by over 20% according to the UN High Commission for Refugees. This scale of people returning to a country that has suffered from decades of war puts a great deal of stress on infrastructures that have been destroyed. flatirons has helped fund three key infrastructures in a new community made up of around 4,000 former IDPs: a school, a clinic, and a water system that provides safe drinking water. flatirons continues to help fund these ongoing operations in partnership with the NGO to create a sustainable economic situation for the residents of this new community.

Interest Meeting

Join us for an Interest Meeting about the October 12-23 Men's short-term trip to Afghanistan.

Download the trip dates for Afghanistan here.

Download the Information Packet for Afghanistan. (pdf)

Apply for short-term trips here.

For more information, email missions@flatironschurch.com or call the church office at 303-664-5524.

Beginning in November, 2011 flatirons entered into a partnership with Musana Children’s Home in Uganda. Musana was started in the summer of 2008 by a few students that were a part of MERGE College Age Ministry at flatirons along with 2 Ugandan young men. Musana Children’s Home arose in response to orphans and vulnerable children who were living at another orphanage in deplorable conditions. Musana has grown into much more than that. While caring for orphans and vulnerable children, Musana has begun to ask and attempt to answer some important questions: Why are there so many orphans and vulnerable children in this area? Are the children who come to us really orphans? Certainly HIV/AIDS has resulted in many children losing one or both parents. There are also social and religious factors in the area which have led to family sizes that are not able to sustain themselves. What can be done to prevent this situation? Musana is working with parents to help create jobs that can lead to sustainability for some families. Perhaps most significantly, Musana is working to build a template where the Chidren’s Home and school are financially sustainable within the Ugandan economy and socially sustainable within the Ugandan society. In addition to sustainability for the Children’s Home, school, and families, the sustainability projects Musana is implementing will serve as examples to the community at large. Some of these projects include a café, a craft business, a farm, dairy cows, chickens and a tilapia farm. Musana is not just providing education and a loving home for vulnerable children it’s impacting a community for generations to come.

Check back here for future short-term trips to Uganda.

For more information, email missions@flatironschurch.com or call the church office at 303-664-5524.