Roanoke service blitz lifts spirits, helps town

It’s a small town that police Chief Adam Melton keeps an eye on — but he can’t say the place doesn’t give him a big surprise every now and then.
   
His community is Roanoke, a town little more than 6,500 strong. It’s a place Richard Richie, pastor of Trinity Baptist Church, Roanoke, said some who live there describe as “semidying,” “lacking opportunity” or “drying up.”
   
But the wind may be changing in Roanoke, Melton said — and not everything drying up there is something he is sad to see go.
   
A tip given to Roanoke police recently allowed them to pick up a drug dealer who, according to Melton, had been “causing us misery” in a particular area of town — a neighborhood that Trinity Baptist recently ministered to through Mission: Roanoke, a two-week-long outpouring of love on the community.
   
And though Melton said he can’t officially attribute the arrest to the church’s missions work, he’d like to think it was a result of the good things happening in the area.
   
“If nothing else, maybe it’s making people be more community-oriented and willing to take a stand,” he said. “I would like to believe the work they (Trinity Baptist) did contributed to that arrest. All their work got very good responses from the people.”
   
Richie said the stigma of the small town having no opportunity for missions work became his church’s challenge — a big enough one that they chose to focus two weeks of intense energy on their community rather than go on their yearly missions trip.
   
“The idea developed out of a sense of knowing we needed to do more community missions work than we were doing,” he said. “When we were praying about things, looking at our calendar and deciding where to go on this year’s missions trip, God continued to speak to me and others, and we decided to start in our Jerusalem.”
   
With a little investigative work, church members and staff came up with immediate community needs. The needs then developed into a strategy that became the July 15–30 Mission: Roanoke, an all-out service blitz.
   
“Normally we’ll have 15 or 20 who go on our missions trip, but with this, we were able to involve around 90 people,” Richie said. “Young and old worked side by side to accomplish the goals. God motivated and directed our people to be on mission right here at home.”
   
Some made door-to-door evangelistic visits; others made sandwiches for the ones going out. Some cut out crafts during backyard Bible clubs; others cut weeds at the local Christian Service Center (CSC).
   
At any given time, Richie said, there were multiple projects going on — children heard the gospel at the Bible clubs while teams washed the windows of the downtown shops. 
   
At the same time at the CSC, senior adults were sorting clothes, men were bulldozing trees and other church members were helping workers from First Baptist Church, Roanoke, build a ramp at the facility’s front entrance.
   
Even more church members were back at Trinity preparing snacks for the clubs and lunches for the cleanup crews. Other groups were cleaning the local Kiwanis park, and still more were manning a blood drive and health fair.
   
“It was an awesome week. God provided and a lot of work was accomplished in a short amount of time,” Richie said. “A lot of good seeds were planted. We want to let [community members] see that we’re here, we’re friendly and we’d love to help meet their needs and have them get involved.”
  
The church continues to see change in Roanoke since the focused service, he said. Church attendance has risen since Mission: Roanoke, and Trinity members are working diligently through a list of contacts made during the week to make sure those relationships are nurtured.
   
“When a church reaches out to their community in ministry like this, it creates an opportunity for believers to build relationships with lost people,” said Teman Knight, evangelism associate for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM). 
   
“These relationships then become an avenue for believers to share the gospel with their new friends. This is the heart of Intentional Evangelism,” Knight said.
   
Intentional Evangelism, the state’s outreach push for 2005–2007, encourages Baptists to use their normal activities and ministries as a vehicle through which to share their faith right where they are.
   
For more information on Intentional Evangelism or the next Intentional Evangelism clinic — scheduled for Sept. 13 from 9 a.m.–4 p.m. at Lindsay Lane Baptist Church, Athens — call the evangelism office of the SBOM at 1-800-264-1225, Ext. 245.