My Un-Cool Church Part 3: In Our Community

For the past several years, our church has been branching out to meet the needs of our community in several different ways.  The Women's Care Center of Dunlap opened its doors a couple of years ago.  An independent ministry, it has had tremendous support from our church as a whole, and many individual members as well.  The story of how this ministry began is another amazing story, but I won't go into the details here.

Although many of our mission projects have centered around building in other communities, the talented workers in our church have done a lot of building right around here.  Not only have we built some low cost housing for seniors in our community through New Hope Ministries, we have done many projects that included roofing homes, building wheel chair ramps, doing needed repairs, and doing general cleaning and maintenance, especially for seniors.  In the wake of the tremendous tornado damage in our area this spring, our members have been very busy, cleaning up yards, repairing roofs, and rebuilding homes that were destroyed.

We have joined ministries that have been established both in the Sequatchie County jail and the prison in Pikeville.  Several members minister on a monthly if not weekly basis in both these facilities.  At the prison we support a Bible institute that is training prisoners in the Word of God.

We have just started a program called Celebrate Recovery to minister to people with "hurts, hang-ups, and habits."  We have a class called First Place, that is all about health and wellness, that has made a tremendous difference in my life and many others over the last six years.  We sponsor a 5K run to benefit ministries in our community and call people to a healthier lifestyle.

Finally, we support Inez & Bethany Pavon in ministering to Hispanics in our neighborhood.  (Some other time I will have to share some of their amazing story.)  We offer services every week, and at certain times during the year they run a soccer league that brings out lots of men and women for food, fun and fellowship.  We're also able to share the gospel during those times.  The language barrier makes it difficult for many of us to be involved, but I would so like to see more of our members out there spending time with these dear folks.
photo © 2008 Tim Schapker | more info (via: Wylio)

These are ministries that my church supports in addition to music ministry, kids and youth programs, and bereavement & hospitality ministries, as well as general teaching ministries.  I'm once again proud of the members of my church family who have had things laid on their heart, and then went out to make them happen and help in whatever way they could.