“When we see a civic promotion of fear, hate and violence as the trajectory of our politics, we need a civic faith of love, healing and hope to defeat it. Loving our neighbor, and learning to practice the politics of love, will be central to the future of democracy in America.” — Jim Wallis

This spring, UniteBoston is highlighting two new ways that Boston-area churches can put “love your neighbor” into action: CarePortal and Neighborhood Support Teams. By leveraging digital tools and relational solidarity, these initiatives unleash the power of community. Read more about these initiatives and discover how you can join in!

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NEW: Showing Up Well: A Training for Volunteers on Genuine Engagement

UniteBoston hosted a training session entitled “Essential Practices for Showing Up Well,” led by the incredible Sarah Blumenshine from the Emmanuel Gospel Center. We explored how our interior mindsets—including unspoken expectations, cultural lenses, and the instinct to fix things—shape how we serve and accompany our neighbors in Greater Boston.

Every volunteer engagement is first and foremost a relationship. Sarah shared practical tools built around three essential practices for showing up well:

• Practice 1: Slowing Down (The Accordion Method)
• Practice 2: Being Attuned (Inner and Outer Alignment)
• Practice 3: Acting Sustainably (Right-Sizing your contribution)

May these practices strengthen your hands and heart as we follow Jesus to love, serve, and accompany our neighbors at this critical time in our city and country. 

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1. CarePortal: A Digital Bridge for Local Families

Massachusetts is filled with an abundance of incredible ministries, foster closets, and outreach teams. CarePortal provides the infrastructure to ensure that existing resources can reach the people who need them most, exactly when they need them, through the local church. It is a rapid-response infrastructure for families in crisis vetted by child-serving professionals that alerts local churches to tangible needs—like a bed for a child, or a working refrigerator. This builds a meaningful connection with someone who cares for them within their own communities.

Imagine a single mother in our region, forced to flee an unsafe situation with almost nothing. When a caseworker posted her need for beds and a way to cook a meal, within hours, a local church arrived not just with a bed and a microwave, but with a spirit of service. They stayed to help her set up the room and offered prayer. Through this digital bridge, the mother received more than just furniture; she received community support and tangible emotional care.

Another father described, “The investigator told me I had 48 hours to get a working refrigerator or my kids couldn’t stay with me. I had no money and no truck. Within four hours of the request going up, a family was in my kitchen installing a fridge. They saved my family that day.” 

See an overview of Care Portal from President and Founder Adrien Lewis:

How the CarePortal Model Works

CarePortal functions as a communication hub that alerts local churches to the needs of families in crisis, vetted by child-serving professionals like social workers, teachers, pastors, or caseworkers. It offers a tangible network of support through four simple steps:

1. Uncovering Needs: A child-serving professional identifies a specific need of a vulnerable child or family. 
2. Submitting Needs: The professional vets the request and enters it into the CarePortal platform.
3. Sharing Needs: CarePortal sends a real-time geo-located alert to nearby churches and community members.
4. Meeting Needs: The local church responds, providing the items or services, and explores how to build meaningful connections with families for the long term. 

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2. The “Love Your Neighbor” Project: Support and Solidarity with Immigrant Neighbors

For five years, WelcomeNST has empowered Neighborhood Support Teams to transform neighborhoods into communities of welcome for newly arrived refugee families. In response to shifting resettlement policies and the current political climate, they are now developing a model to support immigrant, refugee, and asylum-seeking families that are already living in our communities.

In partnership with UniteBoston, WelcomeNST is forming Neighborhood Support Teams by matching local congregations with “sister churches” composed primarily of newcomers through the Love Thy Neighbor Project! Boston is the first area in the country where they are piloting this model! 

Imagine an immigrant family in Boston who has been part of our community, but is now living in constant fear of separation due to shifting immigration policies. A Neighborhood Support Team is there to walk with them in solidarity and accompaniment. 

• Relational Support: Mutual friendships help families navigate systems and overcome isolation.
• Practical Assistance: Teams listen to the family’s self-identified needs and goals, then come alongside the family with information and resources, such as job readiness, legal support, and language skills.
• Proven Model: Every team receives a Preparedness Playbook, “Know Your Rights” training, and ongoing support from a WelcomeNST Specialist.
• Grant funding: We’re pleased to share that the first NSTs will start off with a small amount of seed funding to support families.

The beauty of these partnerships lies in their mutuality; everyone has resources to give and places to receive. Recently, North Shore Community Baptist Church partnered with WelcomeNST to resettle a refugee family from Afghanistan. As they walked together, both the church and the family grew through a deep, transformative friendship.

Scott describes the experience: “We didn’t realize what was missing in our own lives until we met this family. Their hospitality and warmth drew us out of our frantic world and reminded us that life is about relationships. By simply being themselves, they showed us a better way to live.”  Scripture calls us to welcome one another as Christ welcomed us (Romans 15:7) and to love the “stranger” as ourselves (Leviticus 19:34). By reestablishing infrastructures of care, and extending our hands in mutual friendship, we follow God’s call to show belonging and welcoming to our immigrant neighbors so that our entire community can be strengthened. 

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Join the Movement: Your Next Steps

We are calling pastors, ministry leaders, and compassionate neighbors in Greater Boston to join these two initiatives to live into Jesus’ commandment to “love your neighbor.”

Here is a recording from a Zoom interest call where Kasey Dillon and Beatriz Acevedo shared more about CarePortal and the Love Your Neighbor Project:

Care Portal

We are hoping to recruit 10 new response teams with congregations in the pilot phase.

You can enroll your church or team right away: Get Involved with Care Portal. For questions regarding CarePortal, contact Beatriz Acevedo at ​​Beatriz.Acevedo@careportal.org 

The “Love Your Neighbor” Project (NST)

Our immediate goal is to establish 5 matches between churches seeking support and sister churches by the end of March, with another 5 matches by the end of April.

If you are a church with interest in providing support please complete the Interest Form.  If you are a church seeking support, please complete the LYN Church Intake Form. Churches are all differently resourced and our hope is to nurture reciprocal relationships where all give and receive in different ways. For questions regarding the Love Your Neighbor Project, contact Kasey Dillon at kdillon@welcomenst.org.

churches are all differently resourced – strong in different ways – finances, others strong in relationships and care, churches indicate the types of support they are looking for – reciprocity & how everyone benefits when we extend our hearts and hands to give our resources time and talents to support one another – unleash the power of community

Together, we can unleash the power of community to ensure every neighbor has access to needed resources and friends who care. While much in our world today is pulling us apart, as Jim Wallis suggests, practicing the “politics of love” is an important action step we can all take to re-weave the ties that bind us together and our common life together. 

“Our work lives far above the realm of politics. It lives at the core of every faith – to love our neighbors. It’s the great commandment – and it applies everywhere in the world to everyone in the world. At the heart of it, this isn’t about a program, it is about standing together in kinship with those who are targeted, abused, persecuted and hated.  And it’s our chance to write the story that we will one day tell our grandkids when they are learning about this era in their history books in hopes that one day, they too will do the same.​” 

— Elizabeth Davis-Edwards, Executive Director of Welcome NST 

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