More than 500 miles separate First Baptist Church in Grapevine and the Valley Baptist Retreat and Conference Center. Texans on Mission helped bridge the gap, facilitating a project that mutually benefitted the North Texas church and the South Texas retreat center.
Joe Crutchfield, a member of First Baptist in Grapevine and disaster relief volunteer with Texans on Mission, said God put together multiple partners to be “the hands and feet of Christ for his ministry.”
After First Baptist Church in Grapevine built a new worship center in the 1990s, its old sanctuary was remodeled as a children’s ministry facility, complete with indoor playground equipment.
Growing ministries need space
About a year ago, Gabriel Nuñez, missions minister at First Baptist in Grapevine, launched a Spanish-language ministry to meet the changing needs of the community, Associate Pastor Jonathan Cook said.
“That ministry is growing, and it needed space for worship,” Cook said.
At the same time, the children’s ministry has grown to a point where the church is working with a design firm to renovate a building to accommodate its needs, he added.
So, the church decided to restore the old sanctuary to its original purpose as a worship center for the Spanish-language ministry and as a secondary worship space for other events, Cook said.
To make the worship space available, the children’s playground equipment needed to be disassembled and removed, and ministry leaders hoped to find a new home for it.
“Our church asks, ‘Where is there a need, and how can we help?’” Cook said.
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God put the pieces together
Scott Williamson, a member of First Baptist in Grapevine, had the answer.
Williamson has served more than a decade on the board of the Valley Baptist Missions Education Center in Harlingen. He knew Valley Baptist Retreat and Conference Center in Mission—a ministry of the missions education center—could put the playground equipment to good use.
However, he recognized the logistical challenge of transporting the disassembled equipment to the Rio Grande Valley, getting it unloaded and reassembling it.
Williamson discussed the matter with fellow board member Bill Arnold, former president of the Texas Baptist Missions Foundation, who connected him to Texans on Mission.
The missions organization agreed to make available an 18-wheel tractor-trailer rig to transport the playground equipment from Grapevine to the Rio Grande Valley.
About 50 volunteers from the church worked on Feb. 22, disassembling the 30-foot-tall structure and preparing it to be transported to South Texas.
Then the church’s men’s ministry enlisted about two dozen volunteers to load the disassembled playground equipment onto the Texans on Mission tractor-trailer rig on Saturday morning, March 22.
Work together to help each other
Othal Brand Jr., acting president of Valley Baptist Missions Education Center, enlisted volunteers from the Rio Grande Valley to unload the 18-wheeler on Monday, March 24.
“It’s remarkable to see how all these different groups and organizations can work together to help each other,” Williamson said.
Like-minded Christian groups—even those that are part of the same Texas Baptist family—tend to “stay in [their] own lanes a lot of the time,” he observed.
Christians can accomplish much more when they cooperate, and it begins with communication, he noted.
“We don’t do it often enough,” Williamson said. “We’re all on the same team. But sometimes we’re sitting on opposite ends of the bench, and we forget to talk to each other.”
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