I found this volunteer webpage on the Santa Clara City Website:

http://santaclaraca.gov/index.aspx?page=533

Thank you for your interest in becoming a City of Santa Clara volunteer. Volunteering for the City is one of the best examples of government and people working together for the good of the community. It will give you an insider's look at how local government works, and an opportunity to share your talents, skills, and feedback on how to better serve our customers. We consider our volunteers one of the most diverse and rich resources in our community, and we're happy to have you join us.

The mission of the volunteer services program is to enhance city programs and services by matching the varied talents of concerned individuals and groups of all ages, interests, and skills with a wide variety of interesting and challenging municipal projects. Santa Clara volunteers are placed according to their interests and skills, as well as the needs of the City. Volunteer Services seeks to find the right opportunity for every volunteer-to assure a rewarding experience that enhances City services. The links below provide information about opportunities now available:

Commissioners
Citizens Police Academy
Fire Reserves
HEAT
Leadership Santa Clara
Library
P.A.L. Volunteers
Santa Clara ARES/RACES
Santa Clara Arts & Historical Consortium
Senior Center Volunteers Needed
Silicon Valley Animal Control Authority (SVACA)
Therapeutic Recreation Services
Ulistac Natural Area

If you're interested in serving the community, let me know at fellowship group or Sunday service or just post a comment. I'll be doing something on this list and it would be great to be able to serve with other brothers and sisters.

Jeff

Title is from Provers 15:22.

God's guidance is more like the marriage guidance, child guidance, or career guidance that is received from counselors than it is like being talked down by the airport controller as one flies blind through the clouds.  Seeking God's guidance is not like practicing divination or consulting oracles, astrologers, and clairvoyants for information about the future, but rather is comparable with our everyday thinking-through of alternative options in given situations to determine the best course open to us.  The inward experience of being divinely guided is not ordinarily one of seeing signs or hearing voices, but rather one of being able to word out the best thing to do.

"Path of Righteousness," 34

God will help me make sound decisions.

Great study last week everyone! We missed Jess and we hope she had a safe and fun trip. In James 2:1-13, James is telling us not to pick favorites in our lives and to love everyone equally. Whether or not we favor one person or another in our behavior tells us something about where our values are aligned. He uses the rich man and the poor man to make his argument and we automatically think money. But as we discussed before, rich and poor can mean anything: fame, power, money, looks, knowledge, spirit and possessions. God levels the playing field and takes all of us to him, achievements and flaws together and gives his grace equally to his children. Shouldn't we follow His example? Shouldn't our values be aligned with His?

We had a couple of reflection questions and some homework. The activity was to think about a area of your life where it is easy to your values to be aligned with God's values, where you interact with everyone without favoritism. Now think about why it's easy for you to do that in that particular situation and try to replicate that in other parts of your life. The goal is to be aligned with the Lord in all aspects of life, so that our instinctive actions are what he would find pleasing.