As a church we are learning what it means to live out our faith beyond the pews and stain glass. And so our outreach ministry team coordinated an opportunity for our church to flesh out our faith at a local park in town. For weeks on end we met and prayed for God to give us generous hearts and provision for babies and toddlers in our town. What would people need that WIC or Food Stamps or any other government program might not provide? Diaper, wipes, and baby blankets. And so that’s what we started collecting and asking God for.
It was slow going at first. A few packs trickled in. I admit my faith was shaky. I got scared and questioned whether we chose the right item to give away. Diapers are expensive. Could our congregation provide enough to meet a huge need in our community? We would keep praying. One of our planning meetings was at the park to map out where we’d set up everything. We concluded our meeting by circling up and holding hands and praying in the center of the field asking God to supply our community’s needs and to use us in the process. To bring the people he wanted to encourage and to love on that day.
Our most exciting meeting came on the Wednesday before our event this past Saturday. Our outreach leader informed us that an anonymous donation of $2,000.00 came in and was designated for outreach. This exciting news would send part of our team back to Sam’s and Cosco in search of an abundance of diapers. We were so psyched!
We loaded up the church van and other vehicles, flat bed trucks and anything with four wheels and took hundreds of diapers and baby goods to the park on Saturday morning. As people came through the line we asked them to fill out a card with their name and how old their children were and what size diapers they needed. This helped it not to be a chaotic free for all.
The most tender moments were little babies being held and prayed over. Oh, that just warmed my heart. My friend Tanya (holding the baby below) who is not even a year old in Christ took on a boldness in talking to people as she painted faces. She asked if they had a church they were plugged in and she invited them to ours if they didn’t. She also prayed with some of the people. Beautiful to watch a newbie in Christ grow in boldness.
Our goal was to show the love of Jesus and to speak of his love as opportunities came. We didn’t know what that would look like but we prayed God would show us. And He did. Community Cares is not about promoting our church so we can build our church. It was about one thing – loving others as Jesus loved them. He looked on the marginalized with compassion and he did it on their turf. And so must we.
Today at church we celebrated what God did yesterday. Randy read Isaiah 58:1-11 which will knock your socks off. It framed what we did yesterday. Why we did it and what we did. Then we showed this video below of what took place yesterday and then took turns sharing what we saw God do. Many tears were shed. People shared how we’re growing as we learn to serve our community outside our normal context of church. To top it all off three families came to church today that we met at the park yesterday. We even got to have lunch with one of the families afterwards. God is at work in our community and we got to taste it.
Our sweet spot as Christ followers will always be showing and sharing the love of Jesus. Always.
love. love . love.
Watching this video yesterday in church and hearing the testimony of some of the workers blessed my heart. Times are tough for people these days and for God to let nonbelievers and part time believers see what his children can do and are doing in our community maybe will give them the faith or the step they need to take to come through that door and worship with us and realize prayer does work, there are people still out there that care. Means alot to me personally to know that we have a church like Community Baptist that care enough to reach out, to pray, to cry, and to love everyone no matter there race, size, behavior or anything else they are just there to let Christ be seen through them.
Shannon I’m so glad ya’ll were a part of us yesterday! It really is an awesome thing to share the love of God with others and to witness the after effects of that. You would love participating in Community Cares and maybe at our next one you and the kids can. Would be so awesome!
Oh how I love the vision you were given and how God so faithfully provided. Love. Visiting from Amy’s book launch site. Happy to meet you 🙂
Thank you Mindy for swinging by and celebrating what God did. Isn’t Amy’s book awesome?! Love that girl. Now to swing by your blog and say hello to you there.