On Sunday, April 18, Souderton (PA) Church moved out of its walls and into the streets for its first Faith in Action Sunday. We cancelled our regular worship service, and 101 people on 10 different teams scattered out into our community. Together, children, teens and adults mulched playgrounds, packed breakfast bags for shut-ins, wood-chipped trails at a nature center, visited residents at a nursing home, made a quilt for a needy family, painted, installed light fixtures and did yard work. We did maintenance at a block of housing for those transitioning out of homelessness. Men hung doors and fire alarms at a home for victims of domestic abuse. For a couple of years now, we’ve been working on building partnerships with agencies in our community. Our purpose has been to start seeing our community as our mission field and to have a Christ-like, servant presence in it. We’ve talked about being the church outside of our walls and have done various projects. Taking a Sunday to serve, however, was a step in the direction of saying, “We’re all in mission together. God had called us not just to come to church but to be the church in our community.”
In the months leading up to this day, we were a more than a little anxious. We wondered how we could organize that many projects, if people would buy into serving like this on a Sunday morning, and how many (or how few) people would show up. Altogether, ninety- seven people signed up to serve. At least four more - worship visitors who came expecting to worship- ended up serving and getting to know some of our folks as they prepared meals in the kitchen. That’s about our average worship attendance on a regular Sunday at Souderton BIC. We were blown away.
That night, we gathered again at the church building for dinner and worship and to share our experiences. We joked with one of our guys, a soccer coach, who spent the day at the quilting bee. A young father shared that he had been worshipping here for a few months, but today, he felt like he was finally part of us. A deacon said that, at first, he wasn’t so sure about doing service on a Sunday, but while he was serving, it felt like worship. Another was amazed at how busy things are out in town during the time we, and nearly everyone we know, are “in church.”
The coordinator of the event shared about taking a meal, prepared by one of our church families, to a transitioning homeless family. The woman at the door met her with tears, not believing that people would take their time to do this. It struck us that we as the church have something precious that people on the outside long for. Showing God’s love in a practical way is something we can do.
We still have a long way to go to be fully in mission in the Souderton area. But we’ve crossed a big hurdle, and we’ve gotten a taste of the joy of God working through us. We’re excited about the strategic partnerships relationships we’ve built with agencies that serve the neediest in our community.
Trying to get people in our doors is worthwhile. Getting God’s people out of them; priceless.
– Pastor Tom Delk
