Growing our membership network throughout the Chicagoland region was a primary focus this past year and will remain so. Fourteen congregations joined Community Renewal and a goal was set to double those gains in the year ahead.

Growing our regional membership base in both size and effectiveness is central to our social-change goals. When members of Congregational churches gathered 124 years ago to form what is now the Community Renewal Society, they created an organization to address pressing social issues beyond the reach of any one congregation. Today, Community Renewal Society continues to advance that vision through Civic Action, its organizing arm that engages congregations in advocacy and direct action aimed at social change.

Civic Action is a practical bridge between the mandate to act justly, and real world opportunities for people of faith to act powerfully. Civic Action connects its member congregations, community organizations, coalitions and public and private institutions in campaigns seeking justice and equal opportunity. Many people of faith in the six-county metropolitan Chicago region share three things; a vision and hope for a society where all people have the opportunity to reach their God-given potential, frustration in trying to impact larger decisions related to this vision, and physical separation from one another along racial, economic and geographic lines.

Civic Action allows people of faith with shared values to overcome real and perceived barriers and act powerfully on concerns they feel called to address.