Editor’s Note:  Each month we feature a local non-profit organization which is doing great work to improve our community.  This month we are proud to feature Operation Transformation. Executive Director Rev. Dr. Andrew Seppo shares more about the organization’s mission.

We are an organization founded 22 years ago with the goal of uniting the faith community and bringing the church outside its 4 walls into the Blue Water Area. We have a lot of initiatives and events throughout the year that are focused on what we call the 4 Greats.

  1. The Great Commandment: Love God and Love people. We focus on loving our leaders, building up marriages, and pouring into the next generation. We do this through offering things like marriage classes and hosting free, family events (like Family Night!), and being a liaison between community officials and churches.
  2. The Great Commission: Go and Make Disciples. We encourage personal growth and spiritual development through community-wide connect groups that foster safe spaces for spiritual conversations and through our mentoring program that serves to develop accountability and deep relationships.
  3. The Great Compassion: Serve Those in Greatest Need. We strive to be able to adapt to the ever-changing needs in our area, whether that’s helping launch a temporary homeless men’s shelter, offering bi-monthly respite care for foster and kinship families, or weekly updating the local food pantries available on our website. We connect those in need to available resources.
  4. The Great Collaboration: We are better together. This is our north star, our guiding principle that God has called us as a faith community to be unified. Radical life change happens when the local church presents a unified faith in Jesus despite our many differences. We facilitate several community services throughout the year (such as Good Friday & MLK), a community-wide 40 Days of Prayer Devotional with weekly corporate prayer gatherings throughout the city, and weekly prayer with dozens of local churches and ministries praying specifically for the Blue Water Area.

Our mission is to see the Blue Water Area flourish, and we know that happens when the 4 Greats are lived out by the church, local businesses, and the civic community. If you are interested in learning more, we have our upcoming Benefit Dinner on Thursday, October 3rd at Alexanders. It is a complimentary dinner, where we will be sharing our vision for the year ahead. Email cseppo@optrans.org to reserve tickets.