If you were to see church members in Central Baptist Association stooped over, it’s not because they have their heads in the sand — it’s because they have their ears to the ground.
“Our mandate in Matthew 25:31–40 is to watch for and meet physical needs in order to have a witness to others,” said Maarah Marks, director and coordinator of Central Association’s Jerusalem Missions. “Our missions volunteers in each church keep their ears to the ground, their eyes on the community and their hearts open to God’s leadership when they hear of a need.”
Jerusalem Missions, an associational ministry hub, provides a central point where members of the association’s 21 churches can quickly get their hands on food, clothing, household goods and even construction and repair teams to meet needs in their local communities.
Each church has at least two missions volunteers that serve as local point people to both collect items from the church and contact the association when goods are needed in their community, Marks said.
“That volunteer network is the biggest thing that makes this work in our association. It is distributed by the volunteers in the name of their churches, not as Jerusalem Missions,” she said. “We are not blazing across Coosa County that this is a Central Association missions-action project — those we are helping wouldn’t know what Central Association is. But when they know, ‘That church right down the road did that for us,’ that’s more of an opportunity for the local church to make an impact.”
The spark for Jerusalem Missions ignited a little more than a year ago when massive layoffs from area mills and plants had burdened families — and, in turn, area charitable agencies — to the point of despair, Marks said.
Woman’s Missionary Union and men’s ministry leaders, as well as volunteers from each church, saw the need and banded together to birth Jerusalem Missions. They prepared training manuals to distribute to the churches and collected supplies to stock three loaned houses spread across the association.
“Almost every church has seen the need, but only a few have had the space to store these kinds of items,” said Marks’ husband John, director of missions for Central Association. “A recurring need associated with missions-action in our churches led to the establishment of the food pantry and clothes closet. These were provided through gifts from the churches.”
Churches such as Poplar Springs Baptist Church, Rockford, responded to the project with emphatic support, leading the way by gathering enough clothing to open the first clothes closet.
“The Jerusalem Missions project has been wonderful — it has bounded forward,” said Bonnie Camp, a volunteer for Poplar Springs Baptist. “It’s helped so many people in our community and surrounding areas with clothes and food.”
Recently word got to Camp that a man in her community had left his wife with two small children and no clothes or bottles. Her heart went out to the young mother.
A call she sent out to Jerusalem Missions filled the need almost immediately. “We were able to step in and get her bottles, food and milk,” said Camp, whose husband, Joe, is pastor of Poplar Springs. “She was so grateful.”
According to Maarah Marks, more than 200 people have been helped by Jerusalem Missions to date.
“There has been much positive growth in the churches that are doing this. The people who receive the help show deep appreciation for what our churches are willing to do for them,” she said. “And the volunteers involved on the local church level talk over and over again about how they are blessed by it.”
It has been an awesome challenge but an awesome opportunity, she added. “God has used the women and men of this association to meet needs, and for that, we give God all the glory.”
Central Association churches network to meet local needs with Jerusalem Missions project
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