Randolph Baptist, others help local schools as part of outreach ministry

Wanting to cast off the social club shroud and put on a robe of service, Charles Teague, pastor of Randolph Baptist Church in Randolph, decided to show his church’s love for the students at Randolph Elementary School by helping them and their teachers meet their school supply needs.
   
“So many times churches have a bad reputation as social clubs or elite groups. We are in a rural community and wanted the students to know that we are an area church that wants to serve the community,” said Teague.
   
To do this, Sunday School classes gave school supplies to individual classes in area schools. “We collected everything from pens and crayons and glue to tennis balls and notebooks and Kleenex,” Teague said.
   
The church also made gift bags for the teachers to distribute at a faculty meeting. The bags included pencils with the church’s name on it, stress balls, crackers, candy, notepads, tracts, a friendly note from the pastor and a church newsletter.
   
“The teachers appreciated the reassurance that we care about them,” Teague said. “Everything we gave to both the teachers and the students had a sticker on it that said, ‘with love from Randolph Baptist Church.’ Now they know that a specific church loves them.”
   
Teague said the project helped the schools economically, but it also gave them an opportunity for ministry at the school.
   
“We come in contact with so many parents and now new parents know that we are a church that cares,” he said. “This has shed a positive light on the church.”
   
Randolph Baptist is not the only church working to help local schools. Andrea Aldridge, communications specialist for Alabama’s Woman’s Missionary Union (WMU), said they developed the Strengthening Alabama’s Schools program following the 1999 debate about how to help the state’s schools.
   
“When [the lottery] was defeated, that was when we said that we don’t need something bad to bring our schools money. We made it our priority to help entire schools, from the principals and boards to the students and teachers and the parents of students,” Aldridge said.
   
The Alabama WMU office developed a brochure and a Web site to give people ideas about how to help. The Web site also allows churches to post information about what they’ve done to strengthen schools. Aldridge said they’ve sent out thousands of brochures.
   
“And we haven’t just gotten support from churches,” Aldridge said. “We’ve also had whole associations help, like Shelby County Association. Debbie Snider with church and community ministries has worked extensively there.”
   
Tina Vaughn, member of Morningview Baptist Church, Montgomery, helped with her church’s Partners in Prayer program.
   
“First Baptist, Montgomery, developed Partners in Prayer, and ours just started,” Vaughn said. “One church member adopts one teacher from Morningview Elementary School and prays for them throughout the year.
   
“We announced the program at our Prime Timers meeting for older members of the church, and they took every teacher we had because they were so excited. We were really surprised with the response,” Vaughn said.
   
Morningview’s entire church donated school supplies, and at a prayer luncheon at the beginning of the school year, a “Tools for School” bin was set up for teachers to gather supplies.
   
“We had about 50 faculty members show up for prayer, from teachers to custodians to kitchen helpers. Only about five or six teachers did not attend,” Vaughn said.
   
The church served the faculty lunch and invited them to leave prayer requests with the church.
   
“The teachers and their prayer partners had their pictures taken, and there was a lot of emotion,” said Vaughn. Partners have gone to read to the classes for which they pray, sent gifts to them and had lunch with them.
   
Beverly Miller, executive director of Alabama WMU and a member of Vaughn Forest Baptist Church, Montgomery, said members of Girls in Action (GAs) at her church prayer walked Halycon Elementary School where some of them are students.
    
“The girls prayed at six different stations for different subjects,” Miller said. “They prayed for teachers and administrators there and at other schools, for the students, for wisdom of teachers and students and safety at the school, for the staff and people who serve the students, for the families of the students, for students with special needs and for the construction personnel who are building an addition to the school.”
   
“We’ve received lots of smiles,” Teague said, “and we’re still getting encouraging letters telling us, ‘You still don’t know what this meant to me,’ or, ‘You’ve met so many needs here.’ We hope to do this again in the future.”
   
For ideas for your church, visit www.alawoman.com or e-mail Candace McIntosh at cmcintosh@alsbom.org.