WASHINGTON — Since 2006, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship field personnel Brandon and Tirzah Turner have been serving in Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Md., ministering among the poor and encouraging local CBF partner churches to do the same.
On Nov. 3, the Turners organized the Mid-Atlantic CBF's first missions day at National Baptist Memorial Church in Washington, where local participants helped launch the church's clothing closet.
Participants sorted and gave away clothes and offered donuts, coffee, hot chocolate and conversation to those who stopped by the church. They also handed out fliers about an after school program at the church sponsored by City Gate ministries.
Dub Poole
Mid-Atlantic CBF's missions day included launching the new clothing closet at National Baptist Memorial Church in Washington.
“We are targeting families who are very low in income or are in poverty,” said City Gate program director Kristin Wiener. “We set up an opportunity for them to come for a day. The effort helped National Baptist to establish with the community residents that there were clothing closet services there, and it helped recruit for our after school program.”
The Turners hoped the missions day would attract church members from around the Mid-Atlantic region to see the needs in their own community.
“A lot of the churches aren't in the city, but they're very close to the city,” said Tirzah Tuner. “National Baptist is right downtown, and there's a lot of need around their church. For people that can come into the city, it kind of opens their eyes that this [need] is right down the road.”
This awareness is part of encouraging church members to minister not only globally but locally.
“It's important that if we're going to profess to be the presence of Christ that we be the presence of Christ where God has planted us, as well as where he might lead us around the world to minister,” said Mid-Atlantic CBF coordinator Dub Pool.
The Turners plans to sponsor a similar event in Baltimore in the future.