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5-20-07 -- Uniting to Serve
Three in One
At weekend services, in elders meetings, and during Sunday school classes, churches are still watching videos of the historic service from last June’s North American Christian Convention at which church of Christ and independent Christian church leaders swapped Bibles and prayed for unity. And for many, it continues to serve as a call to action.
“The Fourth Avenue Church of Christ really wanted to participate more with other area churches, so we watched that video together and talked about possibilities,” says Doug Fultz, senior minister at Franklin (Tennessee) Christian Church. Leaders from Harpeth Community Church, another independent Christian church in Franklin, joined the discussion, and the team developed “Three Events, Three Churches, One Purpose.”
In April the churches joined together for a unity service to introduce the congregations to each other; the event included participants and worship leaders from each church and a special message from the director of a local outreach organization.
The evening together served as a prelude for the joint community service projects the churches will undertake this summer. In June the three congregations will host an all-day event for residents of the Franklin Housing Authority, a low-income part of town with many single-parent families. The festival will include music, games, and food for the FHA families, but the churches will also provide information on tutoring and job assistance, child care, medical services, and more. Williamson Christian College, also in Franklin, has even offered to provide scholarships to some of the single moms.
Residents of the housing authority will join the three churches the following day for a combined worship service to include testimonies and music.
That service will end the first round of activities, but the partnership among the churches is just beginning. “We’re figuring out what’s next,” says Fultz. “It might be a church plant, or there might be another strategic way to work together. You know, Alexander Campbell himself started the Fourth Avenue church. They have quite a history.”
www.fcctn.org
www.fourthavenuechurch.org
www.harpethcc.com
Group Rule
This spring, Kaimuki Christian Church (Honolulu, Hawaii) developed a new requirement for church membership—adults wishing to become members at KCC will now be expected to join a small group of some kind.
Kaimuki already offered a full slate of Bible classes, small-group studies, and other connection opportunities, but the requirement for membership is new. Individuals can choose from any of these groups, including studies of Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life, a fellowship group developed specifically for men or for women, a Sunday morning class, or even an affinity group comprised of people sharing a common interest or hobby.
Senior pastor Ron Arnold writes, “It is our conviction that Christians who become part of a small group will grow strong and mature as they interact over the Word with other believers. Even if they are not in a ‘Bible study’ they will grow deep in fellowship . . . will be shepherded, prayed and cared for . . . [and] will be able to much more effectively relate in loving ways to those outside the faith.”
The church will “grandfather in” current members while encouraging those not currently in a group to choose one for future involvement.
www.kaimukichristian.org
International Adoption
When Chuck Foreman, global outreach minister at First Christian Church (Phoenix, Arizona), and his wife Kathy served as overseas missionaries in Taiwan, a small group in one of their stateside supporting churches “adopted” and encouraged them with regular e-mails, care packages, and letters. The group prayed for the Foremans each week during their meeting time, and even made themselves available for airport runs and carpool duties during furloughs.
Based on this experience, and the benefits it provided for both his family and the faraway church, Foreman is developing a similar program at FCC. Each cell group at First Christian has been invited to adopt one of the 11 missionary families the church supports.
Although most of these families work internationally, a few serve on Indian reservations in this country. All will be adopted by cell groups.
In addition to the many blessings the program will bring to the missionaries, Foreman believes it also helps the small group members feel more connected to the church’s mission work. “Our missionaries need to know that there are more people connected to their ministry . . . than just the missions pastor,” Foreman shares. “Our church members need to be directly involved on the home front in what is happening globally in missions through First Christian Church.”
www.fccphx.com
Coffee Service
Among its many outreach efforts, Southeast Christian Church (Parker, Colorado) supports one that’s especially unique: serving coffee to those in the military.
The “He-Brews Hope” ministry, led by a chaplain in the Marines, offers fresh-brewed coffee drinks to one camp of troops in Iraq. Chaplain Anderson writes that he offers “my Betio Blend (a blend of Kenya AA and Costa Rican coffee beans that I roast right here) or a flavored latte with a shot or two of espresso. [The troops] jokingly refer to it as ‘doing shots with the chaplain.’”
Southeast’s partnership with He-Brews also includes year-round shipments of letters, birthday cards, care packages, Bibles, and coffee supplies. “He-Brews is fast becoming the morale booster of the deployment,” Anderson shares.
www.sechristian.org
Jennifer Taylor, one of CHRISTIAN STANDARD's contributing editors, lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
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