A New Name but the Same Mission: Introducing Social Action Massachusetts

This is the first post from our new blog, located at socialactionma.wordpress.com. Be sure to update your links and check there for the continuation of our dialogue about faith, ethics and ending homelessness!

In our March 30 blog post “What’s In a Name?”, we invited your ideas about how SAM, through the language we use and our actions, can be more welcoming to a greater diversity of faiths and spiritual or ethical practices. After much reflection, we have decided to affirm our commitment to social action across boundaries of faith, belief and practice by transitioning from “Social Action Ministries” to our new name: Social Action Massachusetts.

As we change our name, our commitment to the mission of ending homelessness remains the same, as does our deep respect for the religious communities who originally came together in 1976 to found SAM and work together to advocate for housing for our most vulnerable neighbors. Their belief in the importance of living out their faith through social action will continue to inform the work that SAM does as we encourage lively dialogue about the relationship between belief and action in conjunction with our advocacy to end homelessness. Becoming Social Action Massachusetts reflects our conviction that people of diverse religious, spiritual or ethically-based backgrounds—many of whom may not identify with the word “ministries”—all share a belief in recognizing the dignity of all human beings by working for a society in which no one is without a home. Whether you draw your beliefs and practices from traditional religious sources, humanistic values or other spiritual or ethical ideas or communities, we need you to be a part of our dialogue about social action—and a part of the solution to homelessness.

Thank you to all who have journeyed with us as Social Action Ministries. We look forward to continuing to work with you and with many others across the Commonwealth as Social Action Massachusetts!