“What on earth are we here for?”
For 40 days in late September and October, nearly 30 churches in Charleston and the surrounding area dared to asked themselves that question. And they are discovering that when it comes to making a community impact, they are “better together.”
The 30 churches of various denominations – including Southern Baptist, Episcopal, Presbyterian and Nazarene – and some non-denominational congregations have banded together to simultaneously study Rick Warren’s latest devotional series, “40 Days of Community,” and to lead the small groups within their congregations to conduct ministry projects throughout the city.
“’40 Days of Purpose’ focuses generally on individuals: that God made each of us with a purpose. The study tries to help us figure out what that purpose is,” explained Josh Surratt, one of the organizers of the Charleston campaign. “’40 Days of Community’ is structured exactly the same, with a devotional study that participants go through together called ‘Better Together.’
“Instead of focusing on what am I here for, it focuses on what on earth are we here for, basically looking at, as believers, how we can make a difference in the community that we live in and want to reach out to as a church,” said Surratt, associate pastor of Seacoast Church in Mount Pleasant.
The 40 Days of Community emphasis encourages the members of small groups in each of the churches to go out and serve together on a ministry project, Surratt said. “Obviously that involves a lot of teamwork in planning and executing,” he noted. “We are seeing people really bonding and developing some closeness.”
While almost every church wants to be known for serving and loving, Surratt said, “a lot of times it is easy for us as individuals and churches to turn our eyes away from things that are happening in our communities that we don’t like or just wish we could ignore.” Through 40 Days of Community, however, “we are really trying to change the church’s culture to one that’s all about serving and getting involved in meeting the needs of our community,” he said.
Seacoast, which has nine campuses spanning from Charleston and Summerville to Columbia, Irmo and Greenville to Savannah, Ga., currently has about 500 small groups, according to Surratt. Many of these small groups have identified ministry projects to undertake in their communities, such as hosting a baby shower for new mothers at a crisis pregnancy center; landscaping and revitalizing a block in a run-down, inner-city neighborhood; and holding a car wash and networking with local business leaders, who promoted and matched the funds, to raise more than $13,000 for persons affected by Hurricane Katrina.
These are just a few examples of how churches all over the city are impacting their communities as a result of the 40 Days campaign.
“We’re just now getting stories coming in from other churches involved,” Surratt noted. “It’s been great, the churches working together,” he told a reporter from the Charleston Post and Courier. “Everyone can rally around making a difference in the community.”
For instance, Joy Baptist Church, an African-American congregation of about 60 people, plans to adopt a center for about 35 displaced veterans. “Our first project will be to show a movie and then share the gospel,” said pastor Darrell Coulter. “We hope that this will not be just a one-time event, but will help establish an ongoing relationship with that center,” he added.
Other examples include a group at Cathedral of Praise helping underprivileged students shop for school supplies; at St. Stephen’s Reformed Episcopal Church, small groups are planning to assist a new mentoring program for at-risk children; and a class at First Baptist Church, Charleston, is collecting baby blankets to distribute to needy families.
“Our goal is to live out God’s purpose for each of us, while encouraging each religious community to pursue works to which their group is led,” commented Jerry Young, president of the Charleston Leadership Foundation, another organizer of the effort.
“We’re all God’s children, and we’re all called to live out his purpose in community,” Young continued. “We’re coming together to do this, while continuing to respect individual differences.”
The joint 40 Days effort is having an impact on the churches as well.
“Not only does the 40 Days campaign aim at helping the church grow in fellowship and serving, but it also encourages members to bless the community in some kind of way that brings people to the knowledge of Jesus Christ as Savior, and ministers in his name to people who may not know him at all,” explained Marshall Blalock, pastor of First Baptist Church, Charleston.
“It gets members to venture outside of the church to reach people with the good news of Jesus. That’s the whole point,” Blalock added.
For Blalock, one of the most attractive features of the 40 Days campaign is cooperating with other churches to impact the community.
“The idea of cooperating with all these other churches, to do something at a heart level – more than just a formality – but all of us trying to reach people for Christ at the same time and doing it together, the synergy of that was a real appealing feature,” he said.
Another beneficial aspect of the 40 Days study, according to Blalock, is the unity it builds among individual church members. “When you are all reading the same verses in the Bible, studying the same passages in your Bible classes, and you’re celebrating the same great truths in worship – having literally everybody on the same page – it’s a great blessing,” he said.
“Then to think that, at the same time, there are thousands of people all across our city who are reading those verses, praying about the same things in their small groups and classes, and going over the same lesson, as each week goes on, the power of that will build,” he continued. “The energy of reaching out beyond our own churches into the community is really going to be exciting to see.”
Young, who was instrumental in forming a core group of pastors and lay persons for dialogue about ways to reach the community, which eventually led to the 40 Day’s initiative, agreed that the campaign has been a catalyst for helping the entire church body focus on needs outside of the church.
“By dividing the congregations into small groups that determine their own mission project, more people get involved at a grassroots level,” Young said. “The determination of what project to tackle gives the groups an awareness of the issues in the community that need addressing, and they can see themselves as an integral part of the solution.
“As Pastor Rick (Warren) says, ‘If we want to know God’s plan for solving the problems in our country and around our world, just look in the mirror or around the room in our small group. We are it,” he explained.
Organizers hope that the recent campaign will become a pilot project for other churches in the Charleston area, as well as across the state. About a dozen churches have indicated a desire to participate in a second 40 Days campaign this spring.
“I believe this is a program with enough traction and excitement to begin a grass-roots effort – one city at a time, one church at a time, and one small group at a time – to ultimately make significant changes in communities throughout our nation to have a major impact on behalf of Christ,” Young said.
At the conclusion of the campaign, organizers are planning a celebration Nov. 13 at the Joseph P. Riley Jr. Stadium in Charleston, at which Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Valley Community Church in Lake Forest, Calif., will be keynote speaker.
In anticipation, Blalock asked, “Wouldn’t it be great if we had 10,000 believers at a gathering, all celebrating what God has done in the hearts and lives of his people because we had left our campuses and got in the community, reaching lost people?”