ST. PETERSBURG — While giving cans of Coca Cola to passers-by in front of a Walgreens store here, Brittany Lee, a youth from Union Chapel United Methodist Church in Muncie, Ind., and a member of the visiting youth team helping St. Petersburg’s Clearview United Methodist Church, saw a group of six people walking through the parking lot. She said they caught her eye because they were walking barefoot across the hot pavement.

While giving each of them several cans of soda, she discovered they were homeless. The one woman and five men were "very happy to get something to drink," Lee said.

When she returned to the group, Lee told Larry Smith, director of youth at Lake Gibson United Methodist Church in Lakeland and youth team leader, about the encounter.

"He ran out and gave one of the men his shoes…," Lee said. "That’s what they needed, an act of love."

Similar acts of love and service were common throughout the St. Petersburg District June 26-30 as 12 United Methodist churches participated in the district’s Celebrate Jesus Mission.

The Rev. Doug Kokx, pastor of First United Methodist Church, Clermont, and leader of Clearview’s adult team, visited homes near the church and invited people to a June 30 block party sponsored by the church. He said one resident told him she was unable to attend because her father had died the day before and she had family coming into town.

When Kokx asked the single mother of two teenage sons, whose husband had died two years ago, if there was anything the church could do for her, he said she paused and asked him, "Can I have a hug?"

Kokx gave the woman a hug and prayed with her on her front porch. "She said she had no church family. This was like throwing her a life line," he said.

A few miles south, in the Childs Park neighborhood, members of Childs Park United Methodist Church and visiting team members cut through racial divisions to "reach people in the community in their circumstances…and work together in fulfilling God’s call to ministry," said the Rev. Charles Ray, pastor of the church.

At a June 27 ice cream social sponsored by the church, Al Aki, a member of Orlando’s Aloma United Methodist Church and a Japanese-American, taught origami to Hispanic children, while Russell Victor, president of Spirit Riders Motorcycle Ministry in Jacksonville, played with a group of African-American children.

Members of the Celebrate Jesus team also connected with members of an Outlaws motorcycle club, whose clubhouse is across the street from the church, according to the Rev. Max Wilkins, pastor of First United Methodist Church, Inverness. He said Russell made the initial contact, but four Celebrate Jesus team members spent more than an hour inside the Outlaws’ clubhouse.

The initial moments were tense because nobody was sure how the Outlaws, who Wilkins says are notorious racists, would accept Ray, an African-American. "The value systems on opposite sides of the street couldn’t be farther apart," Wilkins said. "But beneath the value systems, we found a number of things in common…basic human things of family, nature, motorcycles."

Wilkins said they also found out that one member of the Outlaws group had grown up in the Childs Park church.

"A bridge was built," Wilkins said. "The pastor and a leader of the Outlaws agreed to communicate and cooperate on some things. They told us, ‘Thanks for stopping by and making the contact.’ "

Photo by Michael Wacht

Pastors and laity from across the St. Petersburg District and from as far away as Indiana and England commit to supporting Celebrate Jesus through their prayers and gifts at the midweek celebration of the Celebrate Jesus Mission. The support of volunteers and visiting teams helps make the individual church missions a success, says Alan Poole, executive director of Celebration Jesus.

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