Our Mission:
Service Over Self exists to glorify God by proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ in word and deed through urban home repair camps.
Our Vision:
Empowered persons. Transformed neighborhoods.
Neighborhood
The inner city of Memphis... marked by poverty, depression, injustice, racism, division and brokenness, not to mention impoverished housing with little to no insulation, leaky roofs, broken windows, rotting floors, and damaged sheetrock. These are but a few of the realities of the inner city. Yet, look beyond the haze and see the beautiful faces of one of the many homeowners SOS has the opportunity to work with every year as we seek to make homes warmer, safer and drier. Our mission is to empower persons and transform neighborhoods with the love of Christ through home repairs, strategic neighbors and personally investing in the community with staff and interns.
SOS Summer Staff
SOS hires approximately 40 college staff for 10 weeks of the summer to help facilitate our Binghampton camps. These summer staff work long, hard, low-paying hours in the hot sun to serve both campers and homeowners. yet, the eternal benefits to our summer staff far outweighs the cost-personal growth in their relationship with Christ, fellowship in a community of believers, discipleship, and leadership development are but a few outcomes for those who come to serve through SOS.
Camper
Each year, SOS hosts volunteers from all over the United States to serve others in the name of Christ through our urban home repair camps; SOS in Binghamton and SOS114 in Orange Mound. There are three primary camping seasons: spring camps for college students; summer camps for Sr./Jr. high students; and fall camps for families, campus groups, Sunday Schools or any groups willing to serve. As these campers come to serve through home repairs, SOS seeks to encourage these volunteers to live as authentic followers of Jesus Christ. Our heart is for every camper of SOS to know Jesus Christ personally, to know God's agenda as He teaches in Scripture, and for each person to live their life in radical obedience for the gospel and the name of Jesus.
SOS Academy
The SOS Academy was created to glorify God by recruiting and encouraging Kingdom-minded, eternally-focused disciples of Jesus Christ through a one year urban internship in Memphis, TN. The Academy does this by providing interns the opportunity of "incarnational" ministry by offering housing within the Binghampton neighborhood of Memphis, TN; an indepth study regarding missions, participation in regular reading groups, and an international mission trip; placement among several organizations as a means to support the work of God in the inner city and to provide practical application; and exposure to Christian families that have strategically chosen to live in Binghampton. The Academy's greatest asset is the offer of real life examples of families living "sold out" lives for Jesus Christ. At the end of the Academy year the interns facilitate and staff our SOS114 summer camps in Orange Mound as a culmination of the things they have learned and practiced throughout the year in urban ministry.
Local Church
As a way to partner with local believers and churches in our city, SOS seeks to recruit the efforts of local churches to help SOS more fully love and serve our campers, staff and homeowners. Each summer SOS recruits local churches to "Adopt SOS" for a week of the summer, as well as fall weekends, doing such things as: serving and cleaning up after meals, praying for the campers, delivering popsicles, and doing laundry. This helps to: form needed partnerships with local churches, provide congregations opportunities to serve within their city, and expose volunteers to SOS, the inner city and God's heart for missions. In addition to recruiting volunteers, SOS seeks to build relationships with local churches for prayer, camper involvement during all of our camps, financial support and partnership in future SOS expansion.