HALLANDALE — Mt. Sinai United Methodist Church here is a 22-member church with a one-room building. But despite its small size, the church is building a significant ministry to and with the community.

The church is renting a building across the street that will be used as an outreach center for community children and renovating a van it recently purchased so members can transport children to and from the center.

“We can afford it because we’re committed,” said Tia Teague, a member of the church and leader of the church’s program activities. “If God wants you to do it, he’ll provide a way. We’re just listening to what God wants us to do and doing it.”

Teague knows personally how God blesses people who are faithful. She and her husband have been members of Mt. Sinai for about four years, but three years ago they were ready to leave the church.

“We felt the church was mediocre,” she said. “We felt we were mediocre. We were tired of all the mediocrity. We felt like we needed to leave.”

After a meeting with the church’s pastor, the Rev. Ernestine Henry, the Teagues spent three days fasting and praying and at the end of that time called Henry and told her “the Lord doesn’t want us to leave,” Teague said.

She also told the pastor the church needed to start a prayer and fasting ministry. “We need to start a group…to pray in one accord about ourselves,” she said.

That ministry has brought personal changes in many of the church’s members and a growing focus by the church on the community.

Henry said the prayer meeting, which is preceded by a day of fasting, has focused on the issue of self. The people attending have prayed about topics like commitment and forgiveness.

Teague said members were their own obstacles to a deeper faith and ministry. “We needed to change ourselves first and become who we should be in Christ,” she said.

Teague said her prayer life also led her into a ministry in which she did not want to be involved. She is a school teacher, and church members assumed she would also work with children at church. “I was dealing with children at work,” she said. “I wanted another position in the church. But the Lord spoke to me and said, ‘This is what I want you to do.’ ”

Teague teaches Sunday school and is leading efforts to develop the outreach center for children. She also participates in the church’s Community Day event.

Community Day is a three-year-old ministry that began as an annual event to allow church members to interact with and serve the community. It was born out of the church’s theme, “Winning Souls for Christ.”

The original concept was to give away clothing, household items, appliances and other items people needed. It has grown into a day-long event with inflatable games for children, free hot dogs and participation by the Blood Bank.

“It’s great to be out visiting the community,” Teague said. “But one time a year is not enough. We’re not going to win souls if we’re out there only one time a year.”

Church members are now finding new ways to reach the community, including providing food baskets at Thanksgiving and gift stockings at Christmas and distributing information, according to Henry.

Community Day is reaching new people, Henry says. Fred, a homeless man addicted to drugs and alcohol, attended this year’s event. “He and I started talking,” Henry said, adding Fred asked her to help him understand a dream he was having. “I told him I’m not an interpreter of dreams…but that it seemed the Lord wanted him to get his life together. He told me he felt I had been honest with him. He left and kept coming back.”

Fred now attends worship regularly, and church members are trying to find him a room he can rent so he has a place to call home.

“Sometimes we look at the wrong crowd,” Henry said. “Instead, we should be looking at the ones other people turn their noses up at.”