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Story | Crescent Park Baptist Church

Faith in Action Brings Contagious Service

Crescent Park Baptist Church Faith in Action service projects proved to be contagious...

The Faith in Action service projects proved to be contagious at Crescent Park Baptist Church in Odessa, TX.

“Our people really got into the mindset of reaching out and helping in the community,” said Pastor Greg Morris, Minister of Education at Crescent Park.

One of Crescent Park’s projects focused on clean-up and curb appeal for a small, older church nearby. The pastor of that church is bi-vocational, working another full-time job and often is over-tasked with maintaining the church grounds and doing work around the church, said Pastor Greg.

He continued by saying that he thought at first that the church was abandoned, or at least not in use. Speaking of the pastor there, “When I contacted him about us doing some clean-up work, he was excited. We invited their people to join us for breakfast on Saturday morning, before the work commenced.” Then together, members from both churches painted interiors and exteriors, did some light repair work and cleaned up the landscaping. “Their members saw the benefit of working together to get things done. Meanwhile, our people got a vision for what they can do to help someone else.”

After clean-up, Crescent Park members canvassed the neighborhoods of the smaller church, leaving flyers on homes, inviting people to visit on Sunday. Then they helped host a hot dog lunch for the small church and its visitors after those Sunday services.

Meanwhile, other Crescent Park teams hung out on a busy street corner in a prayer booth sporting a sign “Need prayer? Stop here.” Approximately 30 people stopped by and asked for prayer. Team members prayed with each of them, afterwards sending them on their way with free bottles of water.

Another team of 40 people, in an “Adopt-a-Highway” program, bagged 66 bags of garbage along a two-mile stretch of highway. “Some of our people asked how this could possibly be ministry,” Greg said, “yet during the trash pick-up, several cars stopped to ask what was going on, and we had an opportunity to explain what we were doing and share our faith.”

Crescent Park’s Faith in Action event stretched out over the whole weekend, commencing with the Saturday breakfast and ending with the Sunday celebration.

While the adults were working on Saturday, the kids, under the direction of the children’s minister, were busy creating a program to present on Sunday morning at a local nursing home. “This took care of some of our child-care needs, keeping our older children busy,” Greg explained.

Senior adults were busy, too. On Sunday they created neighborhood blitz packages containing a church brochure, information about special Christmas services, and the Gospel of Luke from the Faith in Action packets. These were handed out in neighborhoods surrounding the church. They also wrote personal notes to everyone who had moved into the city in the last three months, inviting them to visit Crescent Park.

“Faith in Action was a great experience,” Greg summed up. “It helped us build a lasting relationship with the little church down the street and also with our community. It also got us out of our inward focus, helping us to truly see our community and its needs.

“Faith in Action also strengthened our fellowship,” he added. “Seeing people leave their comfort zones and come together cross-generationally to work in the community – that was huge!”