Debe Rodgers says she prayed for God to send her a ministry for years. But as the church she’d grown up in — Chisholm Baptist Church, Montgomery — dwindled in size over the decades, she began to wonder what in the world that ministry could be.
Community work
“I’d been at Chisholm Baptist since I was 7, and I could sing a little and play the piano or organ, but I felt like I needed something to do, something out in the community,” she said.
The community around Chisholm Baptist had changed through the years, and the church had changed too.
As members had moved away, the once-thriving church had shrunk to about 20 members.
So in 2018, they made a big move — with help from Montgomery Baptist Association, they gave their church building to a new church plant, Flatline Church at Chisholm, led by Dewayne Rembert, an African-American pastor.
The plan was for the two congregations to become partners in ministry — the aging Chisholm Baptist would keep on meeting in the building on Sunday mornings, but Flatline would begin holding services and running their ministries out of the facilities on a regular basis.
Rodgers and other members were excited about the prospect — they wanted to see new life breathed into the church they loved. And the partnership has been “absolutely wonderful” over the past two years, Rembert said.
But in Chisholm Baptist’s first meeting with Rembert, Rodgers had a question.
Rembert had shared with them all about how he had been investing in the Lee High School football team, feeding them a meal on Fridays and intentionally discipling them.
Now that his ministry had a building, he wanted to start hosting the meals there at the church.
‘Give them a chance’
“I remember Mrs. Debe saying to me with tears in her eyes that she cared about the people there at the church, and because there was a shootout in the church parking lot a couple of years back, she was afraid,” Rembert said. “I told her I couldn’t promise her there wouldn’t be another shootout in the parking lot, but I told her I had been intentionally discipling these guys and asked if she would give them a chance.”
She said yes.
And now when Rodgers talks about those football players, she gets tears in her eyes for a different reason. Not only did the arrangement work — Rodgers herself now runs those meals and invests in the players’ lives. It’s been the answer to her prayer for a personal ministry.
“The same woman who said she was afraid of young African-American men is now like their team mom,” Rembert said. “She goes to all their games, and on her 64th birthday before COVID, they gave her a jersey they had all signed with the number 64. She cried like a baby.”
Rodgers has developed a close relationship with both the players and their parents, sitting with them at games and organizing the food and volunteers for the team meal.
Rembert lines a speaker up each week, but otherwise the ministry is run entirely by Rodgers.
She says it’s been such a blessing to plan the meals, plan how to plant gospel seeds and be a part of their lives. She’s also gone by the school to visit with them at other times, such as when an assistant coach died recently, and when a team member also died back in the spring of 2020.
“I love those kids with a love that I don’t know that some of them have ever been loved with,” Rodgers said.
And God has been “so faithful” to provide a way for her and other volunteers to feed 100 football players every week, she said. Sometimes it’s felt miraculous.
“I’ve never experienced anything like this,” she said. “He just provides. Every pack of chips, every bottle of water, every sandwich — it feels like it has a purpose. There’s no doubt this is a ministry God has called me to do.”
And it’s ever expanding. She ran into a Lee High School baseball player recently out in the community who recognized her and asked if there was a way the baseball team could become part of the ministry too.
‘Creative discipling’
“I told him I would try my best to figure out a way to make that happen,” Rodgers said.
The rest of the churches’ ministries are growing too.
Flatline is constantly finding new ways to get out in the neighborhoods to meet people and build relationships. They’re running food ministries, hosting events for police officers and televising services so that people in the neighborhood can be a part even during COVID-19.
They’ve got an album they’ve produced of hope-filled rap music ready to release.
And Rembert has been training two pastors to plant another Flatline church in Tallassee in late 2021.
“We have been seeking the Lord on creative ways to make sure people are being discipled in the midst of COVID,” he said. “We just give God all the glory.”
The Chisholm congregation has been thrilled to see all that ministry happening and to get to be a part of it in the ways that they’re able.
The two churches have a joint text thread and stay in touch, and members of each church often go to the homes of the other congregation for dinner. And when they’ve had ways to come alongside each other, they have.
For instance, back in the summer, Chisholm Baptist paid for a popsicle truck to drive around the community offering free popsicles to the neighbors while Rembert and others started conversations.
Daniel Edmonds, pastor of Chisholm Baptist, says members are “beginning to see the impact they are having and the contribution they’re making paying Kingdom dividends.”
Next generation
It’s fun for them to see the next generation taking the gospel to the community even while they’re unable to attend church during COVID-19, he said. “We’re beginning to see the fruit of our partnership.”
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