Making a Difference

A helpful question for a church to ask is, What difference would it make to our community if Salem closed? Of course, it would make a big difference in the lives of people who are a part of Salem. But what about in our community? Does anyone know we’re here? Are we making any difference? After all, our mission is to make followers of Jesus who transform the world.

When I am on vacation, I like to take the opportunity to visit other churches. I like to see how they do things and whether they’re making a difference in the world. So when I had a vacation Sunday in June, I visited Veritas Church which meets in a hotel in downtown Cedar Rapids. “Veritas” is a Latin word that means “truth.”

I arrived with a steady stream of people going into the hotel and followed along to the ballroom where the worship service was held. There as a table in the lobby for children’s ministry and there was an information table outside the ballroom. The greeters at the door smiled and said hello, but after that, no one else spoke to me.

After the worship service, I walked out and stopped by the information table. A young woman standing behind the table asked if I had been to Veritas before. I said it my first time and she gave me a big smile and said, “Awesome!” She stuck out her hand and said, “I’m Heidi.” I introduced myself, and she said, “I hope you come back.”

I said, “Well, I'm a pastor here in Cedar Rapids.”

She said, “Great! Where?”

I said, “I’m the pastor of the Salem United Methodist Church.”

She lit up and said, “Oh! By Target!?”

“Yes!”

She said, “We came to your Easter egg hunt! We were at Target that morning and just saw everything going on and went over. It was fantastic! Was that your grand opening?” I said it was and told her our story briefly.

When I left the church gathering that day, I was so proud to be a part of Salem. Our Outreach Team has done a great job leading us in events such as our Trunk-or-Treat and our Easter Egg Hunt. Our community has noticed Salem.

While we want to continue those events, we also want to take it a step further. Salem’s mission is to develop fully engaged disciples of Jesus and unleash them in service to the world.

Being a Christian isn’t a privilege; being a follower of Jesus is a responsibility. We have a task, joining God’s mission to bring to a broken world Salem/shalom (peace, health, wholeness, completeness, well-being, friendship, justice, beauty, salvation).

That’s why our Mission Team held the Mission Fair a couple Sundays ago, and I spoke about Change a Child’s Story in my sermon.

Making a difference in our community begins with each of us asking, How is God calling me to serve? It actually occurs when we step up in action and serve, especially outside the walls of the church in the world. When we all do that together, that’s how we make a difference to our community.

The church exists to help equip us and unleash us for service in the world. So we are creating a Ministry Empowerment Team (MET) at Salem to help us discover our gifts and connect with others who have similar passions and form ministry teams. The MET will also identify one-time and short-term opportunities to serve within and beyond the walls of the church.

How will you serve? How will you make a difference in our community and in the world?