by Andrew Garnett

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I’ve often heard church consultants offer a provocative statement: If your church disappeared tomorrow, would anyone in your neighborhood care?

I have served many churches filled with good people, and personally I loved those churches—but I can’t honestly say the neighborhood would have felt the loss if they were gone.

If Hampton Baptist disappeared tomorrow, I know several hundred people from the community who would be deeply grieved. A ministry called SAME brings these people to our doors every Monday.

SAME (an acronym for “So All May Eat”) began decades ago as a Monday lunch program for people in need. In recent years, we have emphasized the community-building aspect of the ministry; we call those whom we serve our “guests,” and we strive to level the playing field between those who give and those who receive. Some of our guests are homeless, but most are the working poor who struggle to make ends meet.

A hot lunch is still the core of the program, but it has grown to be much more. Guests browse through a boutique-style clothing closet, and they select their own groceries from a pop-up pantry. Licensed professional counselors from a local Christian counseling center set up a table each week to talk with anyone who has a need. Occasionally we bring in services that guests might struggle to access, such as voter registration, health screenings, or tax help. We connect with about 150 people every week.

The church provides space and some administrative support, but in financial terms Hampton Baptist funds only about four percent of the program. Most funding comes from grants and individual donors. Likewise, the majority of volunteers come from outside the church. Some of these volunteers are Christian, but many are not; they merely connect with our mission of meeting needs like Jesus did.

The fact that most volunteers are not church members, combined with the huge scale of the program, can sometimes make Hampton Baptist members anxious. It feels like this program is taking over our church, some people worry. By bringing in so many volunteers from outside our congregation, have we lost our Christian identity?

I always encourage my congregation to believe that what Jesus said is true: “No one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us” (Mk. 9:39-40). To be able to serve alongside people from outside our congregation is an important opportunity to bear witness to Christ. More importantly, we have the chance to repair some of the damage that has been done in Jesus’ name; when we serve others in love and without judgment, we demonstrate a different way of being Christian.

Rev. Dr. Andrew Garnett is the pastor of Hampton Baptist Church in Hampton, VA, a BGAV-participating congregation. He currently serves on BGAV’s Mission Council as a clergy representative from the Tidewater region.