United for Christ
This summer, Family Care in Alabaster was a recipient of UNITE 2017—the first annual youth service event sponsored by Shelby Baptist Association, serving 22 sites all over Shelby County. Participants totaling 160 from 12 different churches scattered across the county to serve their community and worship together over one special weekend.
Cami Jones, House Manager of our Alabaster Family Care home says, “We had an awesome group in Alabaster! We had 4 adult men and 6 Junior High/High Schools boys come work. The group power washed the front porch and sidewalk, an outside staircase, and the backyard sidewalk. In addition, they pulled weeds from the flowerbeds, worked on our bikes, added mulch to our playground area, and fixed up our picnic table area (the big project of the day). They did a phenomenal job and worked so hard during their time at the house!”
We are especially thankful for our partnership with Shelby Baptist Association through this ministry effort. Ministry Center Director Keith Brown and Ministry Evangelism Catalyst Rebekah Parr took the initiative to coordinate the leadership team and helped find materials for construction and landscaping sites.
“Starting UNITE was a natural fit for my position,” Rebekah said. “My focus is to help connect churches to do ministry in their community and throughout Shelby County.”
Helping coordinate UNITE was also a natural fit for Keith as, prior his current position as Ministry Center Director, he served as a youth minister for 18 years. His passion for seeing young people involved in ministry served as inspiration for this countywide service retreat.
Keith and Rebekah were primary visionaries of UNITE upon hearing of a similar opportunity in Dothan called WIRED in 2015. After talking with youth ministers about the possibility of engaging students in service, Keith and Rebekah observed WIRED as they prepared to organize a planning team for an event that would serve Shelby County in a similar way. “Serve Day” began in August of 2016 which paved the way for a UNITE planning team to take form.
“We do not have to go far to find a need. It was encouraging to see students getting involved in serving their community and to hear them say they want to do it more. It is one of those moments as a student pastor where you say, ‘They get it’,” Seth Sandlin, a volunteer at UNITE 2017, said.
Seth is the student pastor at Riverside Baptist Church in Helena, Alabama. Upon hearing of the opportunity to involve students in the UNITE ministry from Discipleship Pastor Bill Golden, Seth decided to make UNITE a primary focus as he was beginning in leadership at the Church.
When asked what led him to get involved with UNITE, Seth said that the strongest push was when he looked at the statistics concerning the need for individuals to be introduced to the gospel in Shelby County.
“When I share those statistics with people, they are shocked,” Seth said. “However, the need is very real and that need led me to get my students involved in reaching their community with the gospel and to put that need in front of them”.
It is encouraging to hear of the lives that have been transformed through service and the passion for missions that evolves from the experience. Regardless of the various walks of life that meet at this shared place of ministry, each individual is able to make the same amount of impact through their devotion of time and resources.
Time and resources are precious, and thinking of how blessed our Family Care ministry was by these efforts, Cami also shares, “We (had) applied for financial assistance for this project . . . Shelby Baptist Association absorbed all of the costs associated with this project. They provided the timber beams, nails, landscape fabric, and mulch needed. We are so thankful for their partnership in ministry!”
We echo her thoughts and feel incredibly blessed to work with Shelby Baptist and so many other great associations around the state.
We cannot wait to see how the Lord continues to open doors of opportunities for community engagement through UNITE and other efforts to help share His name!
For more information on UNITE and the impact participating groups have made through this year’s event, please visit Shelby Baptist Association at their website: http://shelbybaptist.org/ministries/unite/