Spring break did not include sunning on the beach for 67 students and adults in NorthPark Baptist Church in Birmingham, formerly Roebuck Park Baptist Church. Instead, they endured a nine-hour bus ride to Cincinatti, Ohio, where springlike weather was only wishful thinking. The group’s six-day choir tour/missions trip was coordinated by NorthPark’s associate pastor of worship Charlie Martin and associate pastor to students Kris Segrest with Dino Senesi, director of missions for the Baptist Association of Greater Cincinnati. First Baptist Church, Mason, hosted the group in its new Family Life Center.
The NorthPark members did servant evangelism projects with the new church start, Gateway Church in Fairfield. The adults and teenagers knocked on doors with buckets and rakes in hand, volunteering to wash cars and do yard work simply as a ministry with no string attached.
“People were stunned by the kindness of the NorthPark missions team,” Senesi said. “Peop;e are not accustomed to getting things without strings. They left a lasting impression for Christ in hundred’s of homes in Cincinnati.”
Teams canvassed a neighborhood near Riverside Church in Anderson, another newly planted church, asking for food donations for local housing projects and homeless missions. They left notes explaining the ministry along with a bag at each home. The next day they returned to pick up more than 100 bags of food donated by the residents.
Good neighbors
“God spoke to the neighbors through the kindness and willingness to serve from NorthPark ‘missionaries.’ Also, they involved neighbors in helping neighbors. Unchurched people often question the relevancy of church. NorthPark team members glorified God by loving people and being willing to meet actual needs of hurting people,” noted Senesi.
The trip was a choir tour as well as a missions trip, and the NorthPark students performed in several venues other than churches such as a busy downtown hotel lobby, an inner-city day-care facility and the skywalk between an office building and shopping center. Their repertoire included upbeat worship songs as well as “human videos.” Human videos are mimed dramatic interpretations of popular Christian songs performed live or recorded.
The concert at the Mercantile Center was especially meaningful to Martin. The concert was arranged by a church member who saw the performance at New Hope Baptist Church in Loveland, Ohio, and offered to facilitate a concert at the Mercantile Center.
“Church had only been a believer two weeks,” Martin said. “In fact, he was to be baptized Easter. Not only did he handle all of the arrangements for the concert, he provided rolling carts for moving our equipment and invited lost friends. We were in a highly visible area, and our audience included those watching from cars and office windows.”
The students presented their music and their testimonies at a homecoming celebration April 7.
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