For the past six years NewPointe Community Church has shut down regular church services on a Sunday morning and went out into the community to be the church by serving others. One of the core values at NewPointe is Serving Others, so it’s important to put into practice what we value.
Once a year all of the campuses of NewPointe find projects in their local communities and people volunteer to give of their time, talent and energy to serve our schools, villages, nursing homes, non-profit organizations and individuals that are in need.
This year we had nearly 1,900 people serving in four different counties in Northeast Ohio. I serve as Campus Pastor at our Millersburg location and we had over 250 people serving on 29 projects throughout Holmes County.
One of the projects this year was with the Humane Society in the Glenmont area. Their property was run down and in need of repair and over 20 volunteers spent 4-5 hours working on cleaning, painting, weeding and fixing things. There is still some work to do, but that team made a huge dent in what needed to be done.
Another project was for a lady that had a kidney transplant that rejected, so she is back to doing dialysis. She has not been able to take care of her property, so a team of volunteers stained her deck, landscaped her property and did multiple other projects to improve her home. It was a total transformation of her property.
We also had three team go to local nursing homes to visit with residents and to provide two church services to residents. I was able to visit with two elderly gentlemen and the one man talked with me for several minutes and then I asked him if I could pray for him. He said yes and I prayed for him and his health and his family. When I finished I noticed he had tears in his eyes. He said that he doesn’t normally cry but that had been happening more lately. I asked him if he and his wife have a church home. He said they do not go to church. I told him he is welcome anytime when he is feeling better. I left information about the church and my name so he could talk to his wife. Who knows what God is going to do with that.
There are so many more stories that happened on Sunday. We don’t want this to be just a onetime event, so we are planning to have local serving opportunities throughout the year. As we find people and organizations that we can help, we will spread the word and organize work days to help out our community. We are calling it the Helping Hands Team. If you want to be on the email list to be notified of projects, you can email me at cstutzman@newpointe.org
There is no better feeling than when you serve someone else. Let’s be known as the church that serves.