Love Does: Fall into Action
August 16 - September 30
Love Does: Fall into Action
This fall, Love Does is heading out into the community to serve alongside our local mission partners, and we would love for you to join us! Beyond tackling projects, our goal is to help you find a place to build ongoing relationships and make a lasting impact with our mission partners and friends.

Upcoming Service Opportunities (This is just a sampling of what’s coming!):

 	
August 22 (10:00 am-12:00 pm, and 12:30-2:30 pm): Stand! Organizing Party (20 volunteers)
 	
Sept 9 (8:30–10:30 am): Hope Solutions / El Portal Place Coffee Social (5–7 volunteers)
 	
September 11 (10:30 a.m.–1:30p.m.): Trinity Center / Lunch Service and Birthday Celebration (4 volunteers)
 	
Sept 16 (8:30 am–12:00 pm): Monument Crisis Center Food Distribution (5 volunteers)
 	
Sept 17 (8:15–10:30 am): Monument Crisis Center Senior Moments (5 volunteers)
 	
Sept 19 (9:00–11:00 am): White Pony Express (15 volunteers)
 	
Sept 19 (1:30-3:30 pm): Food Bank (20 volunteers)
 	
Sept 26 (9:00 am–3:00 pm): Habitat for Humanity – Esperanza Place, Walnut Creek (15 volunteers)

Look for additional projects this fall in collaboration with Senior Adults, Thursday Fellowship, Youth, and Children’s Ministries.

Questions? Email Michelle Browning.

Sign Up Today!



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Community Event – A special evening with Sarah Collins Rudolph, The Fifth Girl: A Journey of Survival and Justice
September 11 @ 6:00 pm


Sarah Collins Rudolph, survivor of the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama on September 15, 1963, will share her poignant personal narrative of survival, resilience, faith, and advocacy. Forged in the devastating terror of what was meant to be “Youth Sunday” at church, Mrs. Rudolph will share a firsthand account of the morning that transformed a sanctuary into a site of domestic terrorism and a catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement. 

Mrs. Rudolph will recount the events of that morning, describing how she walked to church with her sister, Addie Mae Collins, and joined three other friends—Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley—in the basement lounge to prepare for the 11:00 a.m. service. She watched her sister Addie tie the sash of Denise McNair’s new dress just before the explosion ripped through the building at 10:22 a.m. The immediate aftermath of the blast buried Mrs. Rudolph in rubble and blinded her. She will describe the terrifying silence following the explosion and the memory of calling out “Addie, Addie, Addie” into the debris, only to receive no answer. After the explosion, she faced a long road of recovery for her injuries, including removal of 21 shards of glass from her face and eyes, the permanent loss of her right eye and her two-month hospitalization, and the emotional burden of being the only girl in that room to survive the attack that killed her sister and three friends. 

Our program will include a discussion of the successive decades, when the law enforcement investigation remained dormant, with federal progress blocked by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, all despite the early identification of the suspects. Mrs. Rudolph will reflect on the “generational trauma” and the persistent fear felt by the Black community in Birmingham while the perpetrators remained free for nearly 40 years. Sarah will also discuss her role as a witness for the prosecution in three criminal trials between 1978-2002. She showed resolve and courage when she faced her sister’s killers in the courtroom and later at parole hearings, and her testimony helped to secure the convictions that finally brought a measure of restorative justice to the victims’ families and the community. Mrs. Rudolph’s life’s work has been to promote the redemptive power of truth and the importance of ensuring this history is remembered and taught to younger generations. 

Books will be available for purchase the night of the event.


For questions, Contact Shelli Brudzinski.
To learn more about Sarah Collins Rudolph, click here: Sarah C-Rudolph
Register Here
Register Now
Divorce Support Group
September 17 - November 5


Led by Sharon Bartlett over 8 consecutive Thursdays, September 17 - November 5, 2026

Time: 6:30 - 8:00 p.m.
Location: Davies Room

The Divorce Support Group will offer a safe and confidential space for people navigating separation or divorce to get useful information about the process of healing from these experiences and moving forward in a positive way. Participants will have opportunities to share personal experiences as they relate to the topic for the evening and to heighten their awareness and gain insights from these experiences in the context of a supportive group of individuals. We are not alone on this journey. The group will have a maximum of 15 members. All are welcome.

Topics for group discussions include:

 	
Stages of divorce recovery.
 	
Recognizing and dealing with feelings.
 	
Healing power of grief.
 	
Letting go of the past and taking responsibility for the future.
 	
Power of forgiveness.
 	
Setting reasonable expectations and healthy boundaries.
 	
Co-dependence.
 	
Moving on with new strength, understanding and insight.


For additional questions, contact Shelli Brudzinski.
REGISTER HERE
Register Now
Love Does: Volunteer with Us – LOPC Work Days at the Food Bank
September 19 @ 1:30 pm - 3:30 pm
We’re inviting you to join us by volunteering at the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano! By working together (up to 20 of us), we’ll sort, box, and bag food to provide for those in our community facing hunger. This is an opportunity to serve those in need while building connections at LOPC.

Here’s how you can help:

 	
When: Saturday afternoon

 	
Saturday August 15, 11:00 am - 1:00 pm
 	
Saturday, September 19, 1:30 - 3:30 pm
 	
Saturday, October 31, 11:00 am - 1:00 pm
 	
Saturday, December 19, 11:00 am - 1:00 pm

 	





 	
What we do: Warehouse Volunteers - Sort and box food donations, bag fresh produce, and ensure everything is ready for distribution.
 	
What to wear: Wear comfortable clothes, long pants are recommended but not required (jeans are great!).
 	
Age requirements: Age Minimum (with Adult): 11+, Minimum Age:16+
 	
Where: Food Bank, 4010 Nelson Avenue. Parking is limited, so carpooling is a great idea!

Why it matters: The Food Bank serves over 390,000 people each month, and our volunteer support is critical to this mission. Your time and effort directly help those in Contra Costa and Solano counties who are struggling to put food on the table.

Ready to make a difference? Click HERE to sign up now and help us fight hunger!

Questions? Contact Michelle Browning.
Register Now
Kids Helping Kids – Sept 2026
September 20 @ 11:30 am - 1:30 pm
Lafayette-Orinda Presbyterian Church: 49 Knox Drive Lafayette CA 94549


Join us in the Oak Room as we gather to create care packages to send to LOPC's college freshmen  who are studying away from home. We will have lunch, play games, and work on a service project together. This KHK event is designed for Kindergarten through 4th grade children. If you have someone who would like to participate who is older, please contact Susan Wentworth to see if they might volunteer to assist us.

Preregistration is required for this event and space is limited.
Register Now
Special Presentation by Heath Carter
September 20 @ 11:45 am
Join Dr. Heath Carter, Associate Professor of American Christianity at Princeton Theological Seminary, for this special presentation on "Let your Light Shine: Christian Faith and the Way Forward Through Tumultuous Times."
A light lunch will be provided.
REGISTER HERE
Register Now
Guardrails for Kids and AI: A Three Session Parent Workshop
October 6 - October 20
Three Tuesday nights with Jeff Eyet, UC Berkeley lecturer and co-founder of the Berkeley Innovation Group.

Dates: October 6, 13 and 20
Time: 6:30 - 8:00 p.m.
Location: LOPC, 49 Knox Drive, Lafayette, CA 94549

AI Parenting Workshop Series Overview

Your teenager is already using AI. The question is whether they're calling the shots or just accepting the first response they get.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania ran a study with nearly a thousand high school math students, published last year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. One group got open access to ChatGPT during practice. Their practice scores jumped 48 percent. Then the tool was taken away for the exam, and that same group scored 17 percent worse than the students who never touched it. A second group used a version built with safeguards. They came out even with the students who never used AI at all.

Same tool. Same kids. Different result, based on how it got used. And here's the part that got me: neither group could tell. The kids who did worse didn't think they'd learned less. The kids who broke even thought they'd done better.

Try this at dinner tonight. Ask your kid what the AI got wrong, and how they caught it. If the answer is "nothing," nobody's checking. That's the whole problem in one question, and we spend three weeks on it.
Each workshop stands on its own and is limited to 50 attendees. Come to one or come to all three.

Oct 6. The homework looks better. That doesn't mean they learned it. How to tell the difference, and what to ask when you can't. That study was math, where an answer is right or wrong. Nobody's run it on essays yet, and essays are where most of our kids are using this.

Oct 13. When everybody uses the same tool, everybody's work starts to look the same. So, what still makes your kid stand out? We'll also get into agents, which are AI tools that go do things instead of just answering.  It's a different conversation when the AI can take actions on your behalf.

Oct 20. What to actually do about it at home. The guardrails in that Penn study were built into the software by researchers. You can't install those. But you can set rules that work the same way. That's this night. Specific rules, by age, that you can hold to on a school night.

On ages. Middle school and high school aren't the same conversation. A 7th grader mostly shouldn't be leaning on this stuff yet. A high school senior's admissions essays are being read by admissions officers who can tell. Every night splits time between both, and there's time at the end for questions about your child's situation specifically.

The format is short talks paired with table discussions. Bring your questions and an open mind.

Register Here

For questions, contact Shelli Brudzinski.
Register Now