MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (ABP) — Almost 300 members of First Baptist Church in Murfreesboro, Tenn., set aside their plans on a recent Saturday to give eight hours ministering to their community — following the model of other congregations across the region.
A total of 293 members from the church, located in the Nashville suburb, volunteered their services during “Operation Inasmuch” on April 24. The parishioners fanned out across town, participating in a multitude of activities such as painting signs, washing toys, helping senior adults with home tasks, conducting a yard sale, assembling food bags and hygiene kits for the homeless, building a Habitat for Humanity House, working in a ministry center and domestic violence shelter, writing cards, and facilitating health screenings.
Pastor Michael Smith visited each ministry site. He estimated that church volunteers accomplished almost two months of work in one day at Greenhouse Ministries, where they organized the food pantry, career clothes closet, library, and GED resource room. Others entered data into the computer system.
“We set out to try to be the presence of Jesus in Murfreesboro for a day,” Smith said. “Our prayer is that many of our members will come away from the experience prepared and eager to make hands-on ministry a lifestyle.” Operation Inasmuch is a one-day outreach project begun in 1995 by David Crocker, who was then pastor of Snyder Memorial Baptist Church in Fayetteville, N.C. Since then, the project has spread to other churches — Baptist and otherwise — in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, Georgia and Kentucky.
The project's name is based on Matthew 25:40, where Jesus said to followers who helped the less fortunate, “Truly I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.”
Three members of the Murfreesboro church who participated in Operation Inasmuch cited benefits they saw first hand.
Jimmy Hicks, a member of the congregation's lay ministry team and site coordinator at the Salvation Army, led a group of 25 volunteers. They put together toiletry starter kits and sorted items contributed for the charity's big May 1 rummage sale.
“I think there are so many people willing to volunteer their time. They just don't know how to get involved,” Hicks said. As a result of Operation Inasmuch, he said, he believes more church members will volunteer on an ongoing basis.
Lenore Stringer, also a member of the lay ministry team, worked with two other women in the career clothing closet at Greenhouse Ministries where people can obtain clothes for job interviews and, after obtaining a job, get additional clothing to wear to work.
“We measured the clothing that didn't have sizes, put away winter clothing and arranged spring clothing by size,” Stringer said. As a result of seeing the work of Greenhouse Ministries, she is considering further involvement. “I think several of our people will want to go down there and volunteer.”
Phil Nixon coordinated a team of 15 who painted a local mission church's building. While the hard-to-reach top of the mission's wall hadn't been painted before, the team used ladders and extensions to get to it.
“We didn't do this to help [our] church or get more members,” Nixon emphasized. “We did it because we're supposed to serve others.” When the team completed its work, they “prayed and thanked God for letting us get it done.”
In other activities, high school and college students conducted an indoor garage sale in the church gym, providing many items such as children's clothing and toys at affordable prices. Sales generated $3,000 for the students' summer mission trip to Haiti.
In cooperation with Meals on Wheels and Community Helpers, a team of church members went to the homes of seniors and disabled people to help with household projects such as changing light bulbs and checking or installing smoke detectors.
For the future, church lay ministries coordinator Linda Brown said she hopes “Operation Inasmuch will be at least an annual event. I would like to see us do it twice a year.”
–Robert Marus provided additional reporting for this story.
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