WINST0N-SALEM, N.C. — Rob Lemons doesn’t know anything about the family that will one day occupy the house he’s helping build for them. He doesn’t know their names or their story, but that really doesn’t seem to matter to Lemons. The house is going to go up any way, one way or the other.
It’s not just Lemons who finds himself in this position. The missions director at Ardmore Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, N.C., Lemons is the volunteer coordinator for Baptist Build 2012, a consortium of 14 churches in the Winston-Salem area that have teamed with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina, Habitat for Humanity of Forsyth County and CHANGE (Communities Helping All Neighbors Gain Empowerment) to build its first house in the nearby Smith Farm development.
Habitat for Humanity partners at sites like this one in Goldsboro, N.C., to construct low-cost housing.
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Walls for the house will be constructed in Habitat’s local warehouse on Feb. 18, with actual construction set to begin with a Kickoff Blitz scheduled to take place March 28-31. From there on out, workers are slated to be on site every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday until the project is completed in June or so.
Of the $65,000 needed for construction, some $40,000 has already been committed by the group of churches participating in the project. Organizers will seek additional donations through an assortment of fundraisers, grants and offerings.
“Part of what it means to be a Christian is to follow Matthew 25, to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, visit the sick and provide shelter,” Lemons said. “We’re just called to do that. It doesn’t discriminate in that passage at all. He just says we’re supposed to do it. If we do that work, we’re serving him.
“That’s part of the spirit here. We’re being called to serve. Active service is such a huge part of spiritual formation for Christians. We can read the Bible. We can study the Word. We can pray. But there’s a huge element of actual active ministry that I think is every bit as important in our whole spiritual walk.”
The number of churches working on this project is a relatively large one, and also diverse in that churches with mostly Caucasian and others that are predominantly African American are both taking part. When construction actually begins, volunteers from a number of those congregations should be on hand to help out. Making sure that happens will be part of Lemons’ job in lining up helpers.
“I know how hard it is to coordinate volunteers from within my own congregation, but to multiply that across 14, I’m sure will certainly present its own set of challenges,” he said. “They really would like this to be intentional in having to have folks representing multiple congregations at each work day. We only need 15 or so on a given workday. So to have three or four churches represented, four or five people per church, would be kind of ideal.”
Ardmore's Rob Lemons is coordinating Baptist Build 2012.
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There’s a method to such madness, so to speak. Having so many diverse congregations working together serves a number of different functions, according to Sylvia Oberle, the executive director of Habitat for Humanity in Forsyth County. The first of these is a relatively simple one.
“Frankly, in this economy, individual churches don’t often have the funds available for a full sponsorship of a house,” she said. “Coming together like this means churches are able to participate, and they’re able to provide a home for a family without any one church having to provide too much money.”
Oberle has been part of other efforts in which house builds were managed between churches of different faiths. She jokes however, that her greatest accomplishment might very well arranging a partnership between Baptists.
“I’m a Baptist myself, so I joke that getting 14 Baptist churches to agree on anything is a pretty big treat,” Oberle said with a laugh. “That’s why we were excited about doing this build. We do interfaith builds a lot, with Protestant, Jewish and Muslim congregations. I was having lunch with one of my friends who’s a Baptist pastor. He and I agreed that getting 14 Baptist churches together might be the ultimate interfaith build.”
Turning reflective, Oberle knows that working together in such a setting is a great way to build bridges not only with those who will live in the house, but with each other as well.
“It’s just a good opportunity for people to get to know each other and maybe understand the differences in their churches and maybe in worship styles or beliefs,” she concluded. “We are encouraging people to build not just with friends from their own congregation, but to build with people from different churches. That means we’ll have opportunities over lunch, just to talk. It just gives us a great opportunity to bring a lot of people from different, but similar, traditions together.”
In addition to Ardmore, churches participating in the project are Emmanuel Baptist Church, First Baptist Church on Fifth, First Baptist Church on Highland Avenue, Knollwood Baptist Church, Mount Zion Baptist Church, New Bethel Baptist Church, Northwest Baptist Church, North Winston Baptist Church, Peace Haven Baptist Church, Shiloh Baptist Church, United Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church, Via Faith Community and Wake Forest Baptist Church.
Rick Houston ([email protected]), based in Yadkinville, N.C., is a correspondent for the Religious Herald.