By Nick Pringle, Pastor, Community Covenant Church
Here at Community Covenant Church, in rural Clear Lake Washington, it has been a longstanding tradition to pass out food and gifts from our food bank at Christmas time. This has been a great joy and opportunity to love the neighbors in our town. In years past we would receive the names from a local agency, including ages and genders of those in each family. Our Christmas elves would then put tougher gift bags, i.e., large black garbage bags, full of Christmas gifts for each family. In addition they would receive enough food to last 2 weeks through Christmas. Our church people loved it and were bless to have the opportunity to serve our community.
Last year was my first experience with the gift giving. One of the things I noticed was that our church people did not have a personal connection or experience with those who came for the Christmas gifts. I began to ask questions, like any good, young, new pastor should. And I heard the same phrase from multiple people, “we have always done it this way.” So I asked, “what would it be like if we allowed the people to shop for the gifts for their kids?” The seed was planted.
This year we tried out a significant change. I love using the phrase, “trying it out,” because if it doesn’t work, we can always go back to the way it was. We turned our sanctuary into a toy store. It was incredible to see and the food bank volunteers wept as they saw the sanctuary full of toys. We gathered around the toys and prayed for the families who would receive them and dedicated them to God’s good work.
We scheduled the families to come and shop for their kids and it was amazing! We had clipboards to help organize each family. I was firm with our volunteers that none of us will hold the clipboard, but we will hand it over to the families to do the shopping. We did not hold the power. Instead, we are embowered people to shop because God has given us these toys to give away. We had cookies and coffee in the welcome area along with volunteers to welcome them and hear about their stories.
God did some amazing things that week. We served nearly 200 households with a total of 689 people! (We are a church of 90) To God be the glory! Thank you Lord for using Community Covenant to spread your Good News of great joy for all the people!