December 31, 2001
Comanche Baptists take church to the town's unchurched
___By George Henson
___Staff Writer
___COMANCHE--Multihousing ministries are nothing new for city churches in Texas or even many suburban churches. But First Baptist Church of Comanche would fall into neither of those categories.
___There's not even a McDonald's in the central Texas community, where agriculture is the leading industry. But amid the pecan production and dairy farming, there are two government housing areas--both located within a mile or two of First Baptist Church.
BOB WHITNEY, bivocational minister of missions at First Baptist Church of Comanche, baptizes new believers in a borrowed horse trough.
___That short distance might as well be an ocean, though.
___Since the people who live in the low-income communities were not coming to the church, the church went to them.
___"Most of these people would never come to First Baptist Church," explained Bob Whitney, minister of missions for the church and the local county extension agent. "They just wouldn't feel comfortable here. We thought after they became involved they might migrate to the church, but they haven't wanted to do that."
___Instead, the government housing residents are happy to meet in the anteroom of the local food pantry. The room really is a living area of a small apartment that serves during the week as food pantry lobby and on Sundays as the site for the Lindsey Street Church service. Foodstuffs are kept in the bedrooms.
___"I have a very definite sense that while the people would not attend First Baptist Church, they are not afraid to go to the food pantry, precisely because it is not church," Whitney said.
___That thought was echoed by Van Christian, pastor of First Baptist Church: "They didn't want to come here. They didn't want the stigma they had attached to going to church. They wanted to stay at their own building."
___But an aversion to church buildings does not translate to an aversion for Christ. The Mission Comanche ministry--which includes not only Sunday services at the two housing communities but also a weekly tutoring ministry, participation in the community pantry ministry, a mentoring program with local probationers and a battered women's shelter--has seen 11 baptisms.
___Baptism days are real celebrations, Whitney said. Since residents of the two communities meet in buildings adapted for church uses--the Cedar Street community gathers in a meeting room on the apartment complex grounds--neither has a baptistery. So when it's time for a baptism, Whitney uses his agricultural contacts to borrow a horse trough from a local feed store.
___Whitney, who was a Sunday School teacher at First Baptist for years before organizing the Mission Comanche focus, said he misses some of the people at First Baptist Church, but he wouldn't trade his work with the folks on Lindsey Street, where he leads the adult Bible study.
JANETTE POYNER works with a student on math flashcards after school, part of the tutoring ministry she serves in through Mission Comanche.
___"It's just so much fun," he said. "We laugh, clap, have kids sitting all over the floor. We're not particularly structured. It's like a combination cell group, Bible study, discipleship group.
___As many as 60 people have gathered in the small room for worship--a feat accomplished only by stacking them two high in many instances, with children sitting on the laps of adults.
___Volunteers for the Mission Comanche Bible studies meet Sunday mornings at 9:30 to pray together. And then they break up to start walking through the community knocking on doors, waking up their members for Bible study at 11 a.m., and picking up some children who live in other public housing projects where Bible studies have not yet been launched.
___Some people just wander in after hearing the music through the walls. "We just offer them a cookie and a Dr Pepper and show them a seat," he said.
___Both neighborhoods have been affected positively since the Bible studies began, and it has been noticed. Other housing projects have called to find out if one can be started in their neighborhoods. The only problem is a common one--a shortage of volunteers.
___"It takes a pretty good crew to do this. Yeah, you can do it with two or three, with a person to lead music and someone to be the Bible teacher, but not to do what we set out to do, which is to have a lot of personal contact with these people," Whitney said.
___Mission Comanche is a great example of what laypeople who want to reach their community can do if they only will, Pastor Christian said.
___"We didn't have any people with a foreknowledge of how to do multihousing ministry," he explained. "What we had was a group of people who wanted to put feet to the gospel."
___Involvement in the mission churches also has prompted the church's involvement in other mission endeavors, including trips away from Comanche.
SOME Sundays Bob Whitney and other volunteers stack worshippers three deep in order to fit 60 people in a 10-by-14-foot living room of a small apartment.
___"The multihousing ministry was really the start of our greater ministry involvement," Christian said. "It was the cornerstone of our missions awareness. The people in our church were able to see the effects of hands-on missions. Since then, we have started a restorative justice ministry, taken mission trips to Mexico and other things."
___Some church members were not too sure about the multihousing ministry at its inception, Whitney said. Some couldn't understand why these people who were so close by couldn't come to First Baptist. Some also were concerned about 15 key people leaving their Sunday morning leadership positions.
___Those fears have been silenced, though, by the fruits of the ministry--at the home church as well as the mission churches.
___"We've seen an increase in attendance, and I believe starting the multihousing ministry is a part of that growth," Christian said. "We also started a contemporary service at about the same time, but the multihousing ministry part of it cannot be discounted.
___"People are excited about sharing their faith and becoming involved in the lives of people who previously hadn't had much concern shown to them," he said.
___Total attendance in the Sunday morning ministries of First Baptist Church has increased from 250 to 400 in the three years since the multihousing ministry began.
___The ministry has multiplied beyond Sundays as well.
___For example, the Acteens of First Baptist Church began a tutoring ministry on Wednesday afternoons. One of the volunteers in that work is Janette Poynor, a retired schoolteacher.
___The compensation she receives for teaching is different than what she got from her years in the Fort Worth Independent School District. "It's a different kind of paycheck. It's very rewarding to see them light up when they've been working hard on something and finally understand it."
___From the church's perspective, one simple step of missions involvement by volunteers like Poynor has opened many doors for ministry, Whitney said.
___"All this began when we said, 'What can we do to reach parts of our community that we're not reaching?' Now it turned into, 'What do we do next?'"
___
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