Exciting things continue to happen in churches across the Church of God movement. Jeff Perkins, senior pastor at First Church of God in Mount Sterling, Kentucky, recently shared his experience about how God opens doors when we allow him to:
When I came to Mt. Sterling, a part of the vision paper I sent said this: "I believe the church ought to be known as the most serving people in town." After all, we do follow the one who said he came to serve, not to be served. Therefore, as followers of Jesus, I submit that our primary badge of identity should be our service.
So, we have done everything we can to push the church beyond the four walls out into the community. We started changing the culture to a more outward focus back in the fall of 2005 with 40 Days of Community. During this campaign we mandated as strongly as we could for each small group to take on a mission project outside the four walls of the church building. It was amazing to see people who had been in the church all of their lives sitting in living rooms and discussing for the first time how they could have a ministry that could serve and affect their community. They came up with all kinds of projects: a baby shower in a local school for unwed teenage girls, a fundraiser to get a young boy with cancer to the ocean, getting Bibles into a home for juveniles, getting coats and gloves for needy kids, backpacks for school kids...the list goes on and one. The cool thing about this was that our church won the Chamber of Commerce award that year for public service to the community. It was the first time a church has ever won the award. Since then every time we begin a new series of small groups, we continue to mandate that each group take on a service project outside the four walls of the church building. It is literally changing our culture.
This past year one of the goals we set as a church was to extend our sphere of influence into a zip code beyond the one in Mt. Sterling. We chose the city of Jeffersonville, a small community on the southernmost end of Montgomery County. To do this we decided to have what we called the "Jeffersonville Block Party." We did this on a Sunday afternoon from 2:00 to 5:00 PM. We usually have two morning worship services, but on this particular Sunday we had only one early service to free up our people to go serve. It was exciting to see more than 150 volunteers available to serve.
The event consisted of Christian music being played throughout the afternoon, all kinds of games for the kids, free pictures of the family, snow cones, face painting, popcorn, cotton candy, hot dogs, chips, and drinks. The great part was that everything was free to anyone who came. We advertised this event in our newspaper, with banners and posters, and through flyers passed out in the local school.
We didn't have a clue about how many people would show up. I arrived a little late. When I turned into the Jeffersonville park, I was blown away. I couldn't believe the crowds. Those who run the park say two thousand people showed up that day! Everyone had a great day. One grandfather said to me, "I just want to thank you all for doing this today. I am raising my four grandkids, and there is no way I could have afforded to give them such a fun day." Throughout the community the next week the Jeffersonville Block Party was the buzz of the town. Everyone was talking about it. Someone even wrote a letter to the editor of the local paper talking about how wonderful it was.
We also had people register and sign in. On the registration card we had them check whether they attended a church or not. For the ones who didn't have a church home, we had a "call 'em up" party the next Sunday after church during which a bunch of our people called and thanked the people for coming and invited them to church. Many of our people prayed with them over the phone. We even had a few families begin attending as a result of the party.
I am more convinced than ever that if the church is going to be relevant, we must go where the people are and serve them. The block party was just one event in the process. It got our people really fired up and ready to do it again and again. However, the coolest thing of all is this: any church, regardless of size or location, can choose to serve. I highly recommend it!