DOWAGIAC — While Dowagiac residents are out during the Summer in the City Festival enjoying zip lines, parades and sidewalk sales, one local organization is also hoping to promote fellowship and worship.

ACTION Ministries will be closing out Dowagiac’s Summer in the City with its Summer Praise Jam. The event will take place at 2 p.m. Saturday, July 20, on Beeson Street in Dowagiac and will feature a collection of praise and worship music, praise teams and free ice cream.

Jeff Neumann, president of ACTION Ministries, said the organization has been doing something like this in downtown Dowagiac for the past five or six years.

“It’s a good opportunity to do a community event and pull people together from different denominations to worship and sing together. It could be a praise and worship team, individuals or a choir. We gather and we have different praise and worship teams from the area, and we take part and do a group of songs. We play, we sing and we provide lyrics for those who don’t know the words, and we might give a plug for action,” Neumann said.

Neumann said all churches are invited. Four area churches will be in attendance at the event, as well as different musicians and choirs.

“A lot of what goes on with Summer in the City is musical entertainment, and ours is more praise and worship,” Neumann said. “This event is for anybody, but I think more Christians would enjoy it because it is worship music. It’s a chance to hear music from different churches, to gather together as Christians who usually don’t congregate together and to have ice cream, too.”

ACTION Ministries stands for Area Churches Together in One Network. The group hosts worship services during Thanksgiving and Good Friday. It has a food pantry that is available every week on Saturdays, two government food services, senior commodities, transitional housing for those just getting out of jail, as well as regular community meetings, where organizers bring in speakers.

For the Summer in the City event, Neumann said he is hoping that he will see a good community turnout. For him, the event serves as a last hurrah of the summer, and he enjoys seeing people gather outdoors and individuals from different fellowships and denominations come together.

“In previous years, we’ve had everything from a dozen people to 200 people in attendance. It all depends on the weather, the timing and other factors,” Neumann said.

For more information on the Summer Praise Jam, contact Neumann at (269) 782-8619.