Faith in Action Celebration

“Faith In Action is LOVE – and love in action is SERVICE.” – Mother Teresa

The members of Grace Baptist showed their LOVE by their service during our FAITH IN ACTION weekend, September 24-25. The church reached out into our local community through ten service projects.

On Saturday four members of Grace Baptist Church spent three hours “weeding books” in both the children’s and adult sections of the William Jeanes Memorial Library. This weeding provides space for new books that are constantly being added to the collection of more than 51,000 items.

Also on Saturday three teams of 4-5 members represented GBCBB at the Whitpain Community Festival at Montgomery County Community College. Without a doubt, our church booth is the most popular place at the festival. Children and adults are invited to decorate cookies with candy. It was great to hear so many families tell us how their children look forward to coming to our booth and it is “their favorite thing to do at the festival”. In addition, we handed out 100 GBCBB bags loaded with information about our church and its programs for children and youth. What a wonderful ministry for the community to get to know us through our cookies!

Sunday morning started early for our members who served breakfast to over 100 people at the St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church in Norristown. This ministry  began several years ago as a FIA project and our church now is responsible for serving breakfast five times each year. If you have not participated in this outstanding mission, please see Irene Philips to sign up for one of our Sundays. You will be blessed by serving in this mission.

We had wonderful weather for the day for those who served with the Whitpain Parks and Recreation Department and the Hope Forest project teams.

The Whitpain Parks team supports our local township by cleaning up after the festival at MCCC. This includes picking up those cookie crumbs created by our group on Saturday!

The Hope Forest team had a great day doing landscaping and cleaning for the transitional house purchased by Interfaith of Ambler. The house needed lots of renovations and care and the team did everything from landscaping and cleaning gutters to cleaning windows, walls, floors and tools. Soon we will have two families moving in and making this their new home in Ambler.

Once again we had a team working at the church on Sunday morning who wrote cards of love and support to our police and firemen, shut-ins, missionaries and veterans. The group also wrote notes to the new families from Shady Grove Elementary School. In addition, they prepared 18 welcome bags for the families which were delivered by other volunteers. It is great that we can welcome these families into our local area and let them know that we are here to support them.

We also had several teams visiting our shut-ins. What a wonderful time to show them our love and that they are still an important part of our church. Our teams visited members who are no longer able to worship with their church family. Snack bags were also delivered during the visit, just a little something for the teams to leave behind to brighten the day for our members.

Also on Sunday, we had a group of volunteers painting the halls of CCATE Cultural Center in Norristown. The group worked alongside 2 members of the leadership team from the center. The center is an outstanding mission for over 200 Hispanic families serving as a home, school and sport support team for the families.

The kids of Grace had a special project in preparing breakfast on Sunday morning for members of our local police and fire departments. The food looked wonderful and was greatly appreciated by those who dropped by. We want to continue to let those who serve us know that they are appreciated and prayed for by the members of GBCBB.

Special thanks to our project leaders who gave their time and gifts of leadership to organizing the projects: Beth and Doug Hargis, Kate Stremme, Steve Longenberger, Harry Jenkins, Jeanne Hanna, Harold Mathues, Sue Jenkins, Barbara Green, Casey Brookes, and Linda Allmond. Also thanks to Kristin Paluszka for preparing our visual presentation for the worship service celebration and finally to Don Helpa who delivered mulch, ladders, and basically did whatever was asked of him!

It was a great weekend to serve our community and show our love through our action as members of GBCBB. —Betty Helpa, Faith In Action Coordinato

 

 

Grace Baptist Youth Group prepare for a day of volunteering in the community

Don’t Go to Church – Be The Church –  Since 2009 the Grace Baptist Church has taken one Sunday morning in the Fall to ‘be the church’ throughout the local community.  Parks have been cleaned, dinners have been served to volunteer fire fighters, shut-in congregational members have received help with home repairs, and a local middle school received help with their grounds.  It is a great way to let the community know that we as a church care about them.

If you would like to join us:
staff@gracebaptistbluebell.org
 (215)-628-2077