Serving Your Neighbor in Need

Tuesday, July 19, 2022

Serving Your Neighbor in Need

What makes a successful ministry? If a ministry operates for years and serves your community's needs, but the people it helps never join your church, is that a success? Barbara Lowery, a member of Belmont Baptist in Charlottesville, Virginia, says yes. Adam Macinnis spoke with Lowery about her church's laundry ministry for Christianity Today, "None of these people became members of our church. That wasn’t what it was about. It was about helping people in need.”

Macinnis found this a common sentiment for many churches with laundry ministries, where a church either runs a laundromat or often gives out money at laundromats to homeless and lower-income individuals and families. These acts of service do not usually lead to people joining churches, but they are concrete ways to meet needs in the community and share God's love.

Jesus reminds us that whatever we do for the least of our neighbors, we have done for him. Pastor, how can your church creatively help your neighbors?

MINISTRY

Preach the Gospel Everywhere. When Necessary, Use Laundromats.

A different kind of "third place" ministry creates community and connections with washers and dryers.

Adam MacInnis

Some come with track marks from years of drug abuse. Others come with children in tow. Some are struggling through a bad week. Others, a bad decade. All bring their dirty laundry.

They wash it and dry it for free at church-run laundry services throughout the United States.

“Christ said we should feed the hungry and clothe the naked, and I think those clothes should be clean,” said Catherine Ambos, a volunteer at one such ministry in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Of course, it’s not really ...