Faith Works 5-22-21

Faith Works 5-22-21

Jeff Gill

Missions and ministries continue, and thrive

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As most churches are finding their path back to more regular in-person operations, the focus in recent months has reasonably been on worship.

Who can be together, how can they be seated, what should we do within our worship spaces — all of these matters complicated by building layout and auditorium furniture, doorways and hall ceilings, et cetera et cetera. I keep saying "there's no one right way for every church." My prayers have been, and will continue to be, with the church leaders, lay and ordained, who are making the hard choices and communicating complicated responses to frustrated community members.

What gets overlooked in much of this confusion and concern are the outreach ministries so many faith communities operate. Food pantries are a very common expression of ministry outreach for typical churches. One or two days a week, a door is opened, hours are kept, and people not members of the congregation can come to get assistance and support. There are dozens of these around this county, and they tend to work in coordination with the Food Pantry Network of Licking County, which has been helping their member pantries figure out how to follow health orders while still serving the community at large.

More tricky are the means by which other kinds of outreach can function. There have been a few clothes closet type ministries, where people (some have been targeted to groups, like women going back to work for interview clothes, or school clothes for children) come and they need to come inside, and try on items, and the issues of contact and contagion have been hard to manage. Since we've learned that contact transmission is less an issue with coronavirus than originally feared, those hygiene challenges are less of a barrier, but limits on how many can come inside and be together in a tight space are still slowing things up.

And I know many of you have had occasion to visit the Medical Loan Closet at Central Christian Church, which began almost two decades ago in a closet, moved to a room, then a hallway and half a basement, now outside into a converted garage behind the church building. They had the problem many outreach ministries have on weekdays, which is a large number of senior citizens as volunteers, and early on worries about COVID closed them down. Once the vaccine began coming available, they've opened up on Wednesdays again with a little more caution on how many people come in at a time.

Down on US 40, serving the entire Buckeye Lake twi-county region, Hebron New Life Church opened a Baby Pantry over ten years ago. They're open Wednesday evenings and Saturday mornings, offering infant specific items like diapers, formula, and clothing to families who need their help. The church looked around and saw some food pantries and other ministries meeting certain needs quite well, and decided that they were called to a "gap" which was the needs of families with small children. The Hebron Baby Pantry is now, like the Medical Loan Closet in Newark, outgrowing the room it's filled inside the church building.

They are ready to expand, with the end of most of the health orders and limits, hoping to build on their property a standalone building for the Baby Pantry operations and expand their community center capacity. Pastor Brian Harkness told me "we just want to be able to expand our ability to serve the community in ways we weren't able to before," with hopes to reach out to older school-age youth.

In 2019, they served over 3,000 children; executive director Beth Walters let me know in that year they shared around 20,000 packages of diapers, 500 toothbrushes, and some 18,500 children's outfits of clothing. Obviously, numbers were down a bit through 2020, but 2021 has picked up right at the pace they were at before and even increasing a bit. Their current space, though, is at capacity, and I can tell you I have to move sideways through some of the shelving they have up.

[NOTE: keep or edit this para depending on space limits] They ask that adults with children in their care present a "Valid State ID or Driver's License," something that indicates "Proof of Residency" like a utility bill or rental lease, and a WIC folder or medical card. And since it's usually best to come without the child in question, they ask for at least one form of ID per child, whether a "Crib Card," or a copy of Birth Certificate or Social Security Card, and their WIC folder or medical card.]

If you would like to help them build some space, they're interested in support from anyone; their contact info is on their website along with a PayPal button. Along with helping them move forward in 2021 with this project, I hope every faith community is using the "COVID reboot" to think about the gaps and needs and vision they have in their area, and consider: what unexpected blessing might you be able to share where you are?

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he knows that when you need diapers, you really need diapers. Tell him about your unique outreach ministry at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.