Faith Baptist fulfills mission in Washington

Faith Baptist Church will perform mission work this summer in a place it knows like the back of its steeple ? Washington, Iowa. The church will spend its energies completing service projects around town, including volunteering at Celebrate Washington Saturday. Members of the church set up a booth at the Washington Farmers Market Thursday where they gave away cookies and bottles of water.

For the past couple of years, the church has kept its mission work local. Church member Janel Brush said the church has found plenty of work to do here at home. A couple of years ago, the church roofed a man?s house in town. This year, the church has installed steps at one house, installed a handicapped ramp at another, trimmed hedges and done other kinds of yard work for people in need.

Tony Widdel is the church?s discipleship pastor and has been active in the church?s mission projects.

?Two years ago, we decided that instead of driving to New York or flying to Mexico, we would take our ministry and funnel its energies and resources to Washington,? he said.

The church launched a campaign called ?I love Washington,? and made T-shirts bearing that name with a heart shape substituted for the word ?love.? This year, the church?s theme is ?Love you Washington.?

The congregation has shown its love for the community this year by helping out at Hamakua Place. A team of volunteer painters beautified the inside of the sanctuary this year. Other upcoming events the church has planned is a Sunday morning worship service in Central Park, and a comedian, Ken Davis, who will perform Sunday night at the Community Center.

Members of Faith Baptist Church will help set up and tear down at Celebrate Washington, and do all sorts of other volunteer work in between. Widdel said he?ll be playing in the three-on-three basketball tournament that morning and will stick around to help with the kids? games as he did last year.

The reason the church chose to volunteer at Celebrate Washington was quite simple, and that was because that?s where all the people are. Widdel said the congregation is trying to live out Jesus? commandment in Matthew 22:35-40, in which Jesus is asked what the greatest commandment in the law is. Jesus says the greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul and mind, and that the second is to love your neighbor as yourself.

?Our neighbors are gathering at Celebrate Washington,? Widdel said. ?Let?s be the hands and feet of Christ there by helping with the activities. We don?t want to just sit there on Sunday mornings. We want to be in the community. We want to be where the people are. Let?s not make it anymore complicated than that. We?re tired of being spread thin. Let?s do two things well ? let?s love God and love the people we?re with. When you do that, you can make a difference.?

Faith Baptist Church will not have a booth at Celebrate Washington. Widdel said the purpose of helping at Celebrate Washington is not to promote the church but to act upon the church?s teachings.

?If people ask about our church, we?ll tell them, but we decided we?re not going to push people to come to our church,? he said. ?We don?t want to go in with an agenda. The reason we?re doing this is not to get people to come to church. It?s just to live out what the Bible says.?

In 2011, Faith Baptist Church took its youth on a mission trip to South Dakota. The congregation received requests from Washington residents for service projects that year.

?We had such a great response in 2010 that the next year people asked us, ?Where are you??? Widdel said. ?We decided that helping around Washington would be part of our routine since the community appreciated it so much. We said we would run a week-long campaign every year.?

Widdel said a local service project is much easier for adults, too, since they don?t have to take a whole week off work to go and instead can help out in the evenings or weekends.

The church?s theme of ?Love you Washington? and giving back to the community is the subject of a series of sermons over the summer. The sermons are available for viewing online at vimeo.com/faithwashington.

Widdel said the church is looking for more projects next year.

?If someone says, ?I can?t paint my ceiling. Is there a group who can help?? Yes, there is!? he said. ?And we?re not going to wait for one week in the year to do stuff, either. One day last year, we did service projects all Sunday morning. We try to do stuff actively no matter if it?s our mission trip or not.?