Melling Baptist Community

 

Bringing a heart to a centre-less community

 
I took on the role of project leader about three and a half years ago.  At that time we were running a toddler group called Pops and we were doing a weekly assembly in the local primary school.  

Since then we have started:       

• Melling Community Gospel Choir which is run on a Monday evening in the little local pub;
• The Hub coffee morning run in the local scout hall;
• Flower Power, which is a gardener who provides me with beautiful planters twice a year to deliver to the elderly and sick around the community;
• The local Primary School Gospel Choir, this is something I have just begun at the school and the children performed at our Christmas event last year;
• Shoot! This is our new photography club that has been started in the last two months it is going very well and a good number of people attend.

The Gospel Choir consists of about 35 members who attend every week to practise our traditional and contemporary gospel songs.  The group is made up of the most random mix of people.  Young and old, male and female, some with a faith in God, others without, people of every different kind of job and status.  It would not be normal to find this group of people mixing together!  However they all turn up each week and sing and chat and we have truly wonderful relationships with each other.  We have become a close group who care immensely for one another and meet each other throughout the week as friends.  This is church! And little by little these wonderful people are learning more about the God who loves them.

Flower Power started when the mother-in-law of one of my choir members sadly passed away.  I delivered flowers to the family. The husband of the choir member was so delighted with the flowers that he came to one of our choir events.  He made comments about the singing being really beautiful and the whole event leaving him with a wonderful sense of peace.

He is a gardener.  A short time later he contacted me to offer his services in creating planters to deliver to those people I felt needed them most.  Since then both of us have gone out twice a year into the community and his planters have brought so much delight and pleasure to many people throughout Melling.  

He has a background in Buddhism.  Whilst we drive around Melling delivering the planters he asks me lots about my faith and so I have the perfect opportunity to tell him about our wonderful God who loves him. This wonderful kind man and his wonderful kind choir member wife have both become a valuable part of the project here in Melling.  God is truly working in people’s lives here.

Please pray:

• For Jo as she leads this project in Melling and seeks to open people’s eyes to the ways in which God is at work in their lives
• For the Community Gospel Choir and children’s choir - for deepening friendships and understanding of the God who loves them
• For the way in which Flower Power is reaching out to the community

Click here for a printable Fact File about Melling Baptist Community to share with your church.

Click here to read more stories about how the money you give to Home Mission is being used to bring the love of God to communities around the country.