| By
Martha Gay Duncan and Michael Wacht
LAKELAND — An 83-year-old member of Community
United Methodist Church, Ridge Manor, told his pastor he was too old
to go out knocking on doors and passing out plants and cookies as part
of this year’s Celebrate Jesus Mission in the Lakeland District. He
said he could sign his name, however, and gave the church a check for
$10,000 to support its mission and outreach ministries and send church
members to a Celebrate Jesus mission next year.
Celebrate Jesus is a weeklong evangelistic
effort in which local churches reach out to their community. They set
their own goals, design their campaigns and recruit members to
participate. A visiting team of laity and clergy coordinated by
Celebrate Jesus organizers helps members of the local church with
their mission projects. Nearly 300 people from Florida, Indiana,
Oklahoma and England participated in Lakeland’s Celebrate Jesus
Mission July 27-Aug. 3.
One of the goals of the mission is for church
members to get to know the people in their neighborhood better,
according to Karen Taylor, executive director of Celebrate Jesus. Most
missions target the area surrounding the church.
The Hispanic congregation at College Heights
United Methodist Church took a different approach, however. According
to Icel Bosch, a member of the church, there is no one area in
Lakeland where Hispanics live. “It doesn’t exist in Lakeland,”
she said.
Church members instead looked in the Lakeland
phone book and identified people with Hispanic last names. During the
week of the mission, members of the church and visiting team visited
the people listed.
“On the Sunday following the activities, we
had three new families visit the church for the first time,” Bosch
said.
Wahneta Hispanic Mission, which shares a pastor
with the College Heights congregation, also connected with its
neighborhood.
The 20-member church is located in a community
that is predominately Hispanic. Church members worked with a
six-member team to visit door-to-door in its neighborhood and invite
people to the church’s block party, which featured a chicken dinner
and Latin music group from Orlando. More than 150 people attended the
party.
In addition to preparing to welcome the
community, the Wahneta mission also had to prepare for the visiting
team. The host church is responsible for housing the visiting team
members, and Wahneta did not have a place to put its team.
The church’s parsonage was in disrepair,
according to Bosch, so the pastor and his wife, the Rev. Angel and
Amparo Garay, decided to restore it. They put in a new floor and
kitchen cabinets, installed three air conditioning units, and painted
the house.
“They transformed it completely,” Bosch
said. “The transformation was from night to day.”
The mission will now use its parsonage for
church meals, classrooms and church functions.
Next year’s Celebrate Jesus Mission is in the
Melbourne District July 19-26. Anyone interested in being a missionary
may contact the Celebrate Jesus office at 407-893-7305 or office@cjmission.org. |
