Church delivers gospel with a side order of pie

SHALLOWATER—A warm apple pie opens doors and hearts to the gospel, as members at First Baptist Church of Shallowater discovered.

Church members are seeking to visit homes in their small town 10 miles northwest of Lubbock and put into practice Texas Hope 2010 , an emphasis on sharing the gospel with every Texan by Easter Sunday 2010.

“It’s amazing how a warm, homemade apple pie can put people at ease on both sides of the visit,” said Steve Nieman, a member of the church and coordinator for the apple pie outreach program.

“It makes it harder for people to turn us away, and it makes the people in our church more at ease when they have an apple pie in their hands to offer to someone.”

A group of church members meets every Sunday afternoon to deliver apple pies—along with a bag filled with information about the church and a DVD produced by members that explains the gospel. So far, the church has delivered about 125 pies to families in the community.

When Pastor Mitch Wilson preached a sermon series on Texas Hope 2010 in the spring, Nieman and others in the church immediately thought of an outreach event in 2000 when they delivered a Jesus Film and an apple pie to every home in Shallowater.

As Nieman prayed about involvement, he believed God was leading him to coordinate the apple pie ministry to help his whole church share the gospel with many of the 2,200 people in Shallowater.

Nieman, Wilson and Sandy Peters, the assistant leader for the outreach program, created a framework for the program and asked the whole church to commit to help in some way.

“We wanted to set a goal to personally visit every home in the Shallowater School District by Easter Sunday 2010,” Nieman said. “We had 700 homes to visit and about 38 Sundays leading up to Easter 2010, not including a few holidays. We came up with 18 visits per Sunday.”

Initially, 200 people signed a commitment card to help with a part of the ministry. When the program began, 123 people, about 40 percent of the congregation, participated through making, baking or delivering the pies or helping with the follow-up and prayer ministry, Nieman said.

From those who volunteered, two pie-making teams, two pie-baking teams, 12 delivery teams and one prayer team were formed.

Each pie-making team meets once a month to assemble pies. Pies are then placed in the church freezer. Two teams rotate in baking 18 pies each Sunday afternoon. Then six of the 12 delivery teams visit each week. Each delivery team includes four people, but only two members per team visit each week. With this rotation, each team member only delivers bakes or makes a pie once a month.

As the delivery team takes the pies into the community, they are given color-coded maps arranged by Peters and Nieman so that each delivery is tracked. If a family is known to attend another church, then the house is skipped.

Debbie Welper uncovers pies to be cooked. Member of the church made, baked and delivered more than125 homemade apple pies, attempting to share the gospel in the process.

“We aren’t out there to try to take people away from other churches,” Neiman said. “If we know a family goes to the Methodist church or anywhere else, then we skip that house. If we know they don’t attend a church, then we add them to the list. We are doing this to reach the unchurched.”

When the pie is delivered, the delivery team asks for prayer requests. These are recorded and then taken back to the prayer team that meets each Wednesday night.

“Each person takes a name and specifically prays for them,” said James Norton, prayer team leader. “We also give thanks for praises that happened that week. It’s not only an awesome time, but it’s an emotional time. The people here are truly prayer warriors.”

After each name is prayed for, the team writes an encouraging note to follow up on the pie delivery. If there were any needs noticed during the visit, the prayer team finds ways to help with those concerns.

“I think it’s incredible that the people out visiting get the people to open up and express needs,” said Barbara Norton, another prayer team leader. “That’s God going before the visiting team.”

Nieman feels the apple pie plan utilizes the gifts of everyone in the church, helping all types of people reach out to the community to share the love of Christ.

“For some of them, this is their first time to get involved in the church,” Nieman said. “It’s just fun to see these people involved. In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul talks about the different parts of the body working together, and that reminds me of our church.”

For Debbie Welper, helping with the project meant using her gift of administration and service as she coordinates the baking teams.

“I like to be behind the scenes,” said Welper, baking ministry team coordinator. “I love people, but I like to cook and bake so this is fun. It’s a blessing to know you are a part of such a wonderful outreach.”

Emily Davis and her 11-year-old daughter Brittany, said they enjoy the ministry. They like to deliver pies while Davis’ other daughter wants to help the pie-baking team.

“This has been great for our kids,” she said. “This is missions for them. It’s missions they can be involved in here.”

Peters wants the community to see that the church truly cares and wants to help in any way possible.

“My hope for this is to communicate to the people we talk to that we care about them—not about getting them to our church, but that we care about them and their needs,” Peters said. “That’s why I really like the (Texas Hope 2010) prayer, care, share emphasis.”

The project will continue on through Easter 2010, but will peak the Saturday before Easter as all the teams will visit people who showed interest in the first visit to invite them to the Easter service at First Baptist Church.

By the end of the project, the outreach team expects to give away more than 1,000 apple pies.

For a step-by-step guide to carrying out the apple pie outreach, visit http://texas.e-quip.net/presentations/show/2265 .