PETOSKEY, Mich. (BP) — Children’s Missions Day, an annual missions emphasis promoted by Woman’s Missionary Union, has the potential to generate missions projects that reach far beyond a single day.
Such projects can be as practical as assembling and distributing fruit baskets to show appreciation to military veterans, firefighters, law enforcement officers and others in a local community. At least that’s the case for True North Community Church in Petoskey, Mich.
Children’s Missions Day (CMD), held this year on Saturday, Feb. 15, is designed to prepare the next generation to reach people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ — both today and in the future.
For Rick Bristol, a North American Mission Board (NAMB) church planter at True North Community Church, participating in a partner church’s Children’s Missions Day project led him to launch an ongoing community outreach program through his own congregation. A WMU leader at Orchard Church invited Bristol to speak at Orchard’s CMD because he is a military veteran, and their project focused on honoring vets for their military service.
In addition to speaking at the event where the children assembled fruit baskets for veterans, Bristol was asked to find an appropriate location to distribute the baskets. He contacted his county’s Veterans Affairs office and offered to deliver the gift baskets. He later recalled the reply was something like: “Absolutely, the vets need all the Jesus they can get!”
Based on the success of that experience, Bristol approached his True North congregation about continuing the fruit basket ministry on a weekly basis. “I said, ‘Hey listen, church, this is something we did for the Orchard. …
“‘I think we could do it here. I think it’s something we could do fairly often. I want to try it once a week. Can we make seven baskets a week?’” he recalled asking. The church was up for the challenge.
Jeff Urban, a service officer for Emmett County Veterans Affairs, said the recipients are grateful.
“We definitely respect and honor our veterans,” Urban said, “but to actually have something given to our veterans like a fruit basket, it’s not very common so they’re delighted and surprised all at the same time. It definitely gives them a little warm fuzzy there when they get it.”
Sharing fruit baskets is one of several ministry projects that Bristol and his wife Katie have launched over the past couple of years. Their primary ministry efforts are aimed at replanting True North Church after the previous congregation gradually had declined to only six active members.
As a former Navy chaplain who also worked with the Marines, Coast Guard and Army National Guard, Bristol has a heart for fellow veterans. Katie, who grew up in northern Michigan, realized from phone conversations with family and friends back home that there was an urgent need for a strong Christian witness in the region.
Spiritual surveys in northern Michigan that Bristol reviewed showed about 50 percent of residents in 2000 had no religious affiliation. That number had jumped to 75 percent by 2010. Another decade later, “the trend lines are not going in the right direction,” he acknowledged.
“Pretty much when you keep hearing, ‘I wish God would send somebody to them,’ there’s that point where you have to realize that’s God telling you to go there,” he said.
In response, he concluded his military career and they partnered with NAMB as church replanters. They changed the tiny congregation’s name from Agape Baptist Church to True North Community Church and have been gradually engaging the community and nurturing new growth, including a thriving children’s program coordinated by Katie.
“I am definitely called to work with children. It is a natural thing for me,” she said. “Probably my God-given talent is to work with kids so that’s how I can share the Gospel.”
Source: Baptist Press
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