Young adults step up for food box ministry

In the wave of uncertainty that has pummeled our communities, every church has struggled to adjust the ministries God has called them to. For most, this has primarily involved quickly moving services and other weekly gatherings online while retaining meaningful fellowship and sufficient giving. This is a good and worthy struggle, and Christ is honored by each local church and her shepherds who band together to keep their unique ministry afloat. For some of our churches, however, God has actually used this time to expand our ministry calling. This is exactly what God is doing in the ministry of Christian Neighbors Church (CNC) and its partnership with several other Mosaic Initiative churches in Waukegan, Illinois.

“The Emergency Food Box Ministry began in early March,” remembers Pastor Luke McFadden, “as many were advising people to stock up on groceries amid the coronavirus outbreak.” Anticipating many would have difficulty getting access to food, he reached out to a woman in the church and asked her if she thought her neighbors would benefit from food boxes. She went door to door in her apartment building, checking in on each family and getting requests for boxes. She connected with more than twenty families who expressed a need for assistance, so CNC collected groceries, packed boxes, and delivered them. In the weeks that followed, word spread, the list of requests grew, and the ministry took on a larger scale with the help of several volunteer coordinators. Struggling to keep pace and keep stocked, Pastor Luke posted a video seeking assistance with food donations and finances—and the community responded. 

“This resulted in people and churches sending financial support, carload after carload of groceries, and volunteers. Now we are an inter-church effort,” explained Pastor Luke, noting that of the nine Lake County churches involved in the ministry, six are Mosaic Initiative churches in Waukegan. This has allowed the ministry to remain sustainable and to keep pace with the increasing demands. The needs fluctuate, but last week 150 boxes were delivered, a large increase from the initial 20-25 boxes and a significant achievement considering CNC’s membership of around 50 people. The Church together is stronger than one church alone.

“God is reminding people of His faithfulness to provide in an excruciatingly difficult time,” Pastor Luke reflects, assessing the ministry’s impact. “Among others, we serve undocumented immigrants who are not eligible to receive the same types of assistance that others have access to. When folks are missing meals because they are experiencing food insecurity, a food box on their doorstep sends a message of God's love, care, and faithfulness.” The food boxes include notes with the Gospel message and resources in English and Spanish for how families can get connected with Mosaic Initiative churches. Indeed, some of the families who have received boxes have since tuned in to CNC’s webcasted services. 

For a small church made up of “unlikely friends turned into family,” as CNC likes to say, a ministry of this scale is only possible through the support and partnership of the other churches and entities involved, like the mayor’s office, the Waukegan Public Library, and non-profits like Love Inc. and the Fuller Center for Housing. Still, is there something specific about how God has shaped CNC that allowed this ministry to sprout from it? Addressing food insecurity has always been a significant ministry focus for CNC. Pastor Luke can be heard mentioning it in his preaching regularly, calling attention to it as a symptom of the structural socio-economic challenges faced by many within the congregation and in the wider Waukegan community. He often refers his congregants to CNC’s food pantry and the church’s food ministry coordinator, earnestly exhorting us: “No one in our church should ever have to miss a meal.” This was already in CNC’s DNA. What changed wasn’t the brand of ministry God had called CNC to, but the breadth. 

Furthermore, the unlikely friends in the CNC family are unlikely largely due to socioeconomic disparities: some members experience food insecurity periodically or even regularly, while other members are solidly situated at or above the middle class and have probably never had to miss a meal to keep the lights on. The differences in economic situations within one church family has certainly brought its challenges over CNC’s nine years. But it has also been a hallmark of CNC’s unique calling in expressing the oneness Christ calls all of his followers to embody (John 17:21). Nathan, the volunteer coordinator, noted that the food box ministry team “includes everyone from residents of public housing helping us to identify needs and ensure delivery, to furloughed workers choosing to spend their time helping others, to individuals in high-risk categories supporting the ministry through financial gifts and prayer.” God is undermining our natural tendency towards divisiveness by creating a ministry which could only flourish through a united front of people from “normally” such separate lives. 

The unity of Christ manifesting through this ministry is not restricted to CNC. The food box ministry’s delivery coordinator, Marcus, remarked that “the foundation for a unified, community-changing Church in Waukegan has been established and built upon by the Mosaic Initiative, and this food box ministry is tangible proof of that.” When twelve Waukegan churches committed in 2017 to explore together how to become more welcoming, supportive, and effective in serving young adults, no one could have imagined the pandemic-induced chaos that would disrupt the social fabric of the world in three-years time. Were these churches not already partnered in a common mission, it is likely the food box ministry could not have been sustained or grown as it has. While on a delivery run, Joshua, a key leader of another Mosaic Initiative church Vertical Encounter, spoke about the amazing orchestration of God to bring all these churches together for a time such as this. “Our young people are scared,” he said, “but most of them are excited and energized about the opportunity to help those who are more at risk.” Indeed, the different risk factors experienced by the different generations has highlighted the value of strong intergenerational ministries and relationships. Many young adults from all over the various church partners have eagerly stepped into volunteer roles or become regular grocery shoppers for needed food items. Those who would be putting themselves or loved ones at a greater risk are able to support the ministry in other ways, giving extra financial support or praying for each household expressing a need for assistance. 

If the impact of what God is doing in this time were confined to unifying church folk only, it would be something praiseworthy, but the story would fall far short of God’s purpose for his unified people. Jesus prayed for his followers to “become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you (the Father) sent me (the Son) and loved them (the world) even as you loved me.” (John 17:23). The unified Church exists so that the world may know that God the Father “so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16). How can the world know God’s love in Christ? Through Christians embodying that love, sacrificially incarnating the love of God by entering into the world’s hardships with tangible expressions of Christ’s love. When Jesus “took on flesh and dwelt among us,” he came not as a disembodied message of salvation but as a living, breathing embodiment of God’s love (John 1:14). The city outside our church walls—or absent from our streamed services—faces food insecurity, disconnection, fear, and hopelessness all without the “assurance of things hoped for” that we have by faith in the gospel (Hebrews 11:1). Beloved, are our churches, united together as the body of Christ, a living, breathing extension of God’s love for the world? In Waukegan, God has orchestrated an interchurch, intergenerational, unlikely-family ministry to express tangibly His greater-than-the-grave love for all people, particularly for those feeling most hopeless in the grip of food insecurity and the uncertainty of the COVID era.

Pastors, leaders, and churches, how might God use your church’s unique story to display His love that overcomes barriers to unite the people of your church, your city’s churches, and your city as a whole? Take a meticulous inventory of your church’s DNA, your congregants’ giftings and networks, and your partners in the gospel throughout your city. Do that, then look at your city. Really look. What needs are being overlooked? Or, who is being overlooked? Of all the opportunities in your city to express God’s love and open doors for the gospel, what are you particularly situated to address in ways other churches may not be? How might the demographics of your congregation be stewarded towards strengthened partnerships to meet those needs in your city? How might partnerships with other churches and city leaders expand your potential to meet those needs?

Remember, this is all God’s orchestration, achieved in His timing and ways, far beyond what any one person or church could imagine or dream up. We need each other. We need the Holy Spirit’s guidance as we pray over our cities. A surefire way to short circuit a ministry endeavor of this sort is to assume we have what it takes. We cannot be a one-church solution kind of church and expect city-wide impact. We must humbly join hands (metaphorically, of course) while we “seek the welfare of the city.”  (Jeremiah 29:7). This is repeatedly a comment of praise issued by members and lay leaders involved in this ministry: the Mosaic Initiative pastors have walked humbly beside one another for the sake of their people and the city of Waukegan. Nathan aptly observed, “I see a ministry where the focus is not on who gets the credit or gets to be up front but instead on loving God by loving our neighbors.” May this comment be heard more frequently throughout our country as the Church unites to display God’s love in tangible ways.

Written by Dakota Dietz, young adult member of Christian Neighbors Church Mosaic Initiative team