Vernon church combines work and worship, putting faith in action

Posted: 6/29/07

Vernon church combines work
and worship, putting faith in action

By Barbara Bedrick

Texas Baptist Communications

VERNON—As a former church organist, Gwendolyn Wolf has played her favorite hymn—“Blest Be the Tie That Binds”—hundreds of times, but it resonates in her heart more deeply now. She says she’s been touched by the willingness of First Baptist Church in Vernon to put its faith into action.

A month ago, Wolf sat on her old front porch, worrying the rotten wood planks would collapse under the weight of her wheelchair. Those days are gone, and she’s admiring the fresh coat of paint on the porch floor.

“It means a lot … ever since I been here I’ve been trying to fix the floor of this porch,” Wolf said.

Members of First Baptist Church in Vernon worship on “Faith in Action” Sunday by working. This group installed a new tin roof while others built a front porch, painted houses and mowed yards.

 Armed with hammers, nails and new lumber, five members of First Baptist Church in Vernon rebuilt her porch. Several women finished the painting. Wolf is so grateful she urged them to stop by, saying she would be glad “to play their favorite hymns.”

Wolf’s porch project was part of Faith in Action Sunday, when 370 First Baptist Church members worked all over Vernon. The day of labor culminated a four-week Bible study and sermon emphasis on serving other people.

When other congregations gathered for worship, hundreds of First Baptist members cleaned up yards for the disabled and elderly, installed a new tin roof and did construction projects for others and carted off dozens of trailer loads of brush to dump sites.

At the same time, other church members led worship services at eight sites, and about 70 members visited more than 200 homes. Backyard Bible clubs reached more than 150 children—none of whom were going to church on Sunday. Church leaders discovered about 80 prospect families who weren’t attending church, so they anticipate growth through baptism.

“The greatest blessing was seeing the church involved in missions and ministry on a large scale,” said Pastor Ben Macklin. “A sense of amazement was left with people leaving that Sunday evening worship service that had been filled with testimonies of God’s work through our efforts.”

So many times, Macklin added, “preachers preach and teachers teach, and only a few people put their Christianity to practical application in ministry.”

Faith in Action Sunday allowed the church to bring together young and old, mature Christian and new believer, into a collective mission experience that Macklin believes will have a long lasting impact on First Baptist Church. Doing the ministry on a Sunday was important, he added.

“We proved our faith today. We sent a message to Vernon that was far louder than words; we put our faith in action,” Macklin said.

Church member Pat Luttrell emphasized the mission was “bathed in prayer” since its inception. Church bulletins illustrated a prayer guide, and a prayer room was designated where people could pray in one-hour commitments for Faith in Action Sunday. Team members even enlisted inactive members and unchurched friends to participate.

Thirty-eight members prayed throughout the day for the mission effort, volunteers prepared meals for teams, groups held worship services in nursing homes and more than a dozen people helped with children’s activities.

“It was an incredible experience from Day One, Luttrell said. “It opened our eyes to the needs of the community and helped us see things we couldn’t have if we hadn’t done Faith in Action,” Luttrell said. “It opened the eyes of church members to see what they needed to be doing … that as individuals we need to put faith in action every day.”

Now that members have seen the needs for ministry from direct contact, church leaders believe they will realize there are endless possibilities to do kingdom-oriented work.

“Rather than doing missions work by proxy through the mission boards, Faith In Action helps us start a missionary perspective right outside our door and makes foreign missions something we can do as an extension of our local efforts,” Macklin said.

“The day is dawning when missions returns to the fabric of who we are as Baptists, and perhaps the sun is setting on the mentality that missions is something we write a check to support professionals to do in our stead.”

Joyce and Don Maroney are grateful First Baptist reached out to touch their lives. Maroney recently learned he has cancer, suffered several strokes and then overheated while working in the yard and was taken by ambulance to the hospital. His wife couldn’t take care of the yard work, and to top it off, their son is headed back to Kosovo.

First Baptist came to her rescue on Faith in Action Sunday. Mrs. Maroney broke down in tears as she talked about how their ministry made an impact on her.

“There used to be a little song, a love song, about ‘my cup runneth over with love,’ and that kind of expresses it,” she said.