Turning the Church Inside Out - Christianity Today

Leesburg, Florida, is an hour’s drive north of Orlando, but it has little in common with the tourist mecca.

The town of 15,000 has no major industry. Back-to-back freezes in 1983 and 1984 killed the orange groves. The juice plant operates on a small scale now.

We have begun to draw some retirees in recent years, but most of them live in modest homes on fixed incomes.

Our little city is miles from the interstate highway and the Florida Turnpike, and still, people by the hundreds find Leesburg every year, needy people, hurting people. And they come to First Baptist Church.

A local TV station once called us “the church that cares.” The description stuck. What started as an outreach to homeless and transient men in a time of high unemployment has grown into 70 ministries to all kinds of people with all kinds of needs. In the process, we learned to minister to the needs of others that we might lead them to faith in Jesus Christ. We call it “ministry evangelism.”

Our first ministry to the community was a men’s rescue mission. Our Sunday school director suggested that we use an old two-story house in the block next to our yellow-brick sanctuary for ministry. It was a wreck. If the termites had stopped holding hands, the building would have collapsed.

The church I had pastored in another Florida town had started a children’s shelter after we learned that children entering the foster care system were often housed in the jail until the county could place them. I saw the effect an outward-focused ministry had on that congregation. It seemed this church was ready to begin its first ministry. We opened the men’s center.

Today, almost 20 years later, a new men’s rescue mission is the first building you see as you drive around the green knoll and up the slight hill to the church. Our “ministry village” is a collection of beautiful new one-story buildings housing shelters for battered women and children who have been abused or abandoned, a pregnancy care center, a counseling center, and a residential drug and alcohol rehabilitation program.

The storefront at far end of the block houses the food pantry, clothing closet, furniture warehouse, and the financial counseling office. The next piece in this patchwork in the blocks surrounding our sanctuary will be a new clinic.

We opened a small medical office with two nurses several years ago. A retired doctor began donating his time, and now he works as much as 60 hours a week. The local hospital has given us $430,000 to build a new facility. It will be staffed by volunteer doctors who will treat people who have no insurance or government-paid medical assistance. Even in Leesburg, a lot of people fall through the cracks.

Now 4,000 people each year are reached through the services at the ministry village.

Our campus is alive. With these ministries, our elementary and middle schools, after-school programs, arts academy, and support groups, it’s busy here seven days a week. Sunday is the day we celebrate all that God is doing.

Waking a sleeping giant

First Baptist was as sleepy as Leesburg when I came here in 1977. The 100-year-old congregation was white, middle- and upper-class, with attitudes typical of its time. The church averaged 300 in Sunday school and worship and baptized fewer than 20 people per year, mostly the children of members. The church was focused inward. Most all our programming was for the benefit of members. Our business meetings were long and rancorous, and our members squabbled about insignificant things.

Through ministry evangelism, we began to look beyond our own needs. I confronted prejudices with biblical truth. Over time, we have come to see all people as Christ sees them, as recipients of his love and needing his salvation.

As I look across the congregation today, I see people whose only possessions are those we gave them sitting next to the wealthiest residents of our community. We have every race. We have every style of dress, from denim shorts to silk suits. More than 2,000 worshipers attend each weekend. And we have averaged approximately 300 baptisms every year over the past decade. One-third of those are people who come to Christ through our social ministries.

The first piece of the puzzle

When I first arrived in Leesburg, I wanted to establish an emergency rescue shelter for children. One man offered to give the land and another offered a large financial gift, but the church feared the legal risk. The vote in favor was only 51 percent. It seemed unwise to start a new ministry with that kind of vote.

Moving from a “ministry for us” mentality to a “ministry to others” mindset was like turning a barge in a ditch. It was tough. During this time I continued to preach on the love of Christ for lost and hurting people. I frequently preached from the Gospels, showing how Jesus personally cared for people. In the meantime, the rescue mission opened. We began to see lost men saved and wrecked lives redeemed. It’s hard to deny the work of God when it’s sitting in the pew next to you.

Five years after the first vote, the congregation overwhelmingly approved the children’s ministry. Hearts had finally been softened.

And the church began to get personally involved. Our older members started working in the center. Many have become surrogate grandparents. You can walk through there at any time and find volunteers holding babies and rocking them to sleep.

The children’s shelter opened the gate for dozens of outreach ministries. I have watched the pattern: God plants a ministry idea in someone’s heart. One or two offer money and facilities. We make the ministry need and the opportunity known to the congregation. They give freely, without financial campaigns, and then they volunteer to serve.

Our pregnancy care center started that way. One lady who felt we should not just preach against abortion but offer real help to pregnant women gave $5,000 to start the center. Church members ran with the idea. Now we see 150 girls every month. We provide adoption counseling, baby supplies, and help with jobs and housing.

When we began thinking about the shelter for abused women as part of a ministry village, one quiet man came to my office to discuss the plans. He gave $100,000 anonymously. Another woman gave a few tracts of land valued at more than $800,000. And she asked me to come to her house for another donation—$100,000 in cash she had stuffed in a small bag.

A few people caught the vision, then the whole congregation saw it. In four weeks they gave a total of $2 million, without a campaign of any kind. They see the joy in that kind of experience. They keep asking, “What are you going to do next, Lord?” And the ministries multiply.

Now, I’m careful about mentioning a ministry unless I mean business. I was just testing the waters on a ministry to people with AIDS when the deacons came with a unanimous voice. “If this is a need in our community,” they said, “let’s go for it.”

Service is contagious

I wish I could say I had a system to make people want to serve. My insight is hindsight. I can tell you what we do regularly.

 We call the congregation back to evangelism every week. The tendency of Christians is to drift from evangelism, not toward it. And we emphasize that our ministry is for the purpose of sharing the gospel. The ministry aspect—helping people—is so satisfying that we may forget that we’re here to meet a much deeper, eternal need.

We have built accountability for sharing Christ into our meetings with ministry leaders. And three or four times each year I teach a course on sharing our faith for those joining a ministry team.

 We encourage people into service. We don’t push them, but we help them see what they can be. I often ask, “What are you doing today that’s going to matter a million years from now?” That gives our members an eternal perspective.

Every person who joins the church takes the new members’ class. There, as part of determining their giftedness, people are encouraged to choose a place to serve. Then, when they are presented to the church, I say, “Let’s welcome Joan. She wants to work in the latchkey kids ministry.” The congregation hears how each person will be involved, and it serves to check their own involvement.

 We hold up needs before the congregation. If God gives someone a vision for a ministry, we often begin to see that confirmed as a few give to the project and a team coalesces. We share that with the congregation, and another ministry is born.

 We celebrate accomplishments. We regularly have testimonies from those who have been helped: a couple who received counseling to get out of debt, or a man from the rescue mission who is marking six months off alcohol. Our worship services break into applause as we cheer what God is doing.

Often stories of volunteers illustrate my sermons. I recently told the congregation about Charles and Bonnie Keesley, a retired couple who minister to seven hundred people through the homebound ministry. He then works in our Saturday Sunday school. His service is his recreation. So I lift up people like that. I see my role as preacher, pastor, and cheerleader.

If it works in Leesburg …

In recent years I have shared our story with other pastors, and they ask, “How do I get my church to do this?” Some tell me their churches are too small or too entrenched. I suggest:

 Start with what you have. Our renaissance began with a ramshackle house and the willingness of the congregation to let a few people do the work. But it was a start. And their success and joy became contagious.

 Start where your people are. Find the need that most touches their hearts, and they will give themselves to it. Even people who are not directly affected by a problem may feel deeply about it. We recently raised $1.4 million to build a high school. The biggest givers were older people who have no school-age children. But they see the violence in our schools and they care very much about the children. And when the school opens, many will find ways to serve.

Leesburg is not rich, but last year the people of our church gave $3 million to local ministry, over and above our operating budget. People will give to the causes that matter to them. For leaders, it’s a matter of recognizing those needs.

 Start with something familiar. A pastor told me his church was not likely to try anything too radical. I understand that. I recommend as a first step that the church do an old thing very well. While many churches are deciding whether they will do Vacation Bible School, our church returned to a two-week VBS. It’s one of the highlights of the year. And we have people who take vacation days from work so they can teach.

This church does Sunday school well, but we weren’t reaching a significant portion of our community. We started Saturday Sunday school, a Saturday morning version of what we do well on Sunday. Through it we reach poor children and many from single-parent households who are unavailable to us on Sunday. Something familiar became a source of innovation. Our congregation understood it and embraced the new incarnation.

Now some of our men are taking children’s ministry on the road. They painted an old bus orange, cut a huge fold-down door in the side, and created a stage for puppet shows. They drive that thing to parks and low-income housing areas, and in 15 minutes they have it set up and are presenting the gospel to children.

This has become a church willing to try something new in order to share the gospel.

 Start with your most available work force. In our case, it’s retirees. Florida is blessed with them, and at our church, retired people lead the way in ministry. I have found that older people are quite willing to serve if they can see how others benefit. But they need to be asked and given specific tasks. Many of our members work practically full-time in volunteer capacities.

 Start networking with other churches. Many churches in Leesburg support our work spiritually, financially, and with workers. I enjoy a better relationship with other local pastors here than I have anywhere. The ministry village has become a communal project, now drawing support from the local medical community. Smaller churches especially need to work together. Most churches will agree on the need for a social ministry such as a food pantry or clothing closet. It is vital that they also agree on the importance of sharing the gospel as part of that ministry.

How will we know them?

A visitor told me he drove into town not long ago and stopped at a store to ask directions to the church.

“First Baptist?” the clerk said to him. “Oh, yeah, that’s the church that helps the ladies.”

Our church has developed a reputation for helping the ladies—and the children, the men, the addicted, the depressed, and the hurting. Those who come to us aren’t impressed by our facilities, and many don’t know much about Jesus. But when they see his followers helping people, when we help them with a spirit of empathy rather than pity, then they know we love them. And soon, we hope, they will know Jesus loves them too.

Charles Roesel is co-author (with Donald A. Atkinson) of a book on ministry evangelism,Meeting Needs, Sharing Christ (LifeWay Press), and is pastor of First Baptist Church, P.O. Box 4900957, Leesburg FL 34749.

Doctor Quits Retirement Now he’s busier than ever as a medical missionary to his own community.

Howard Vesser taps his foot impatiently. Sidelined for a few days by a heart procedure, Howard wants to get back to work.

Howard—Dr. Vesser—is retired from his practice as an orthopedic surgeon. His wife says he works more now than ever. He is the doctor at the medical office at First Baptist Church of Leesburg’s ministry village.

He talks about the town’s poor. “Some of these people haven’t seen a doctor in years. They’re indigent. And unless they have an illness that would send them to the emergency room, they would not receive any treatment.” He treats diabetes, arthritis, and infections, often using medicines donated by pharmaceutical suppliers. He gave hundreds of first graders their mandatory medical examinations before starting school last fall.

Dr. Vesser sees about 100 patients per month at the tiny office on the church grounds. He expects 500 or more per month to come to the new clinic. He talks eagerly about plans for the new building and its equipment, the financial agreement with the local hospital that will fund construction, and the 20 doctors who have volunteered their services.

He is quiet when asked why he does it. “I wasn’t too active in church before.” One church staffer said Dr. Vesser moved from the sidelines to the center of the action. “But now I have found a way to be involved, by doing what I know and love to do. And the people we see at the clinic know it’s because of Christ.”

Saved, Sober, and Straight Ahead Recovering addict looks to the Lord and to the future.

I worked every day. I also drank every day, I smoked pot every day, and I snorted coke on the weekends. I was a functioning addict.”

Ken Mitchell is big, tanned, 35, with a heavy reddish-brown beard. His voice is on the gravely side. His brow is furrowed sometimes, but he smiles a lot. He has reason to.

“‘Work hard, party hard.’ That was my motto, but I was going nowhere,” Ken said, “until I came here.”

Ken’s parents are Christians. His brother is a minister. It was Ken’s brother, in fact, who heard about the residential treatment program at First Baptist of Leesburg, and urged Ken to go to the center. That was seven months ago.

“I was living in Orlando with a friend. He was drunk all the time. It was really bad. When he pulled a gun on me, I knew I needed some place to go. And I didn’t want to end up like my friend.

“I called my brother. I had tried to quit before, but always on my own. He convinced me to give this a try. I thought, ‘I’d better get a bottle of liquor’ if it was the last one I was going to have.”

Ken barely remembers arriving at the center. But he does recall the struggle of the first few weeks. “Everybody thought I had a bad attitude. Basically, I wasn’t sure I was going to make it.

“I was saved, but I definitely wasn’t living a Christian life. I thought I could quit on my own, but I failed every time. This time I had to quit for the Lord. I prayed, ‘Lord, get me clean somehow.’ God used this program to humble me and make me depend on Him.”

Ken stuck to the program: a Christ-centered 12-step plan combined with extensive Bible study and counseling. “I’m not one of those ‘instant holy’ ones—they usually don’t stick. But it has been supernatural.

“I went into Orlando yesterday and passed some of the places I used to go. I had no desire to go in. Some days it’s still a struggle not to try to find some weed, but for the most part, it’s dwindled off. That’s the grace of God.”

Ken completed the residential program. Now he has joined the maintenance staff at the ministry village while he saves money for his future. He is active in the church. And he helps other men just starting treatment.

“I’ve seen seven guys saved while I’ve been here. I tell these guys they can depend on Christ. I know, because of where he brought me from. I can look back and see how much I’ve grown in the Lord.

“And it’s great to know that, hey, I’m gonna wake up feeling good tomorrow.”