Central Baptist Mission Report 2017
Prepared by Darla Petty, Mission Team Chairperson
for Worship 12-31-17
Church missions are motivated by the social justice teachings of Jesus Christ, who preached a gospel of grace and humble service. Those Christians who most heartily embrace the commandment to love their neighbors take an active role in demonstrating that love through volunteer aid for the less fortunate.
In 2017, Central Baptist Church has been involved in several mission projects.
First off 10% of our giving goes to missions to Cooperative Baptist Fellowship National and Florida, United Brethren in Christ Food Pantry and Halifax Urban Ministries. These are ongoing missions.
We collect food for Halifax Urban Ministries all the time. We also serve food to the homeless at HUM. We have anywhere from 12 to 15 people spend 4 or 5 hours helping prepare the meal and then serving the food to as many as 250 homeless people and then cleaning up. This happens from 9 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. every time there is a 5th Friday which comes out to be 5 times a year. Those helping are some of our members of the Serendipity class and some of the members of the New Beginnings class.
We take a benevolence offering after the communion service once a month. This money goes toward paying an electric bill or water bill for someone who is struggling to keep these turned on.
I know Sunday school classes do things that are mission oriented.
We collected baby items for Chiles Academy, so the mothers can shop for their children by points they have earned.
We had a Chili Cook off, Potato Salad Bar, Spaghetti Luncheon, and a Cup Cake sale to help pay for 30 plus people to go on a mission trip in July, which was very successful. You may not have been able to attend but your giving made it possible.
You donated items to make 200 plus mission bag kits to hand out to the homeless.
Darla and other volunteers
In September we teamed up with 5 other churches and started collecting change to help buy turkeys and also 100 boxes of stuffing mix so 100 families could have a full out Christmas dinner. By the way we collected $875.00 for the turkeys. On December 14th we put the bags together that contained mashed potatoes, gravy, macaroni and cheese, stuffing, corn, and green beans, fruit and bread were added later. On December 21st the turkeys were purchased and group of committed people met at the Jewish Federation to set up and hand out these bags, plus the turkeys. People had to be signed up for this and show their ID to pick up the food. This was very organized.
There was an article in the paper on Friday December 22 showing the food being handed out. I am in it but I would have to point me out for you to know it was me.
Steve Lauxman told me a group of which he was involved wrapped 400 Christmas gifts for 90 families of Project Warm.
We had our Angel Tree again this year. You took angels off the tree and bought gifts for needy children, of Chiles Academy. This was a great way to finish the year.
All of these things have touched my heart, and I feel so blessed to belong to a Church that has a congregation that is willing to give of themselves to help those in need. I cannot thank you enough for your support. I am so proud to be a member of Central Baptist Church. Again thank you for putting your faith into action.
Darla