Small church, big mission

By Tony W. Cartledge

BR Editor

Church folk are often accused of looking inward to their own needs more than they look outward to the world's needs, and rightly so.

Some churches understand, however, that they are made for mission.

Clyde's Chapel Baptist Church, in Wendell, is one of those churches.

On a good Sunday, there might be 75 present in Sunday School and 120 in worship, according to Rex Everhart, who was recently named by N.C. Baptist Men as "Layman of the Year."

Everhart was so humbled by the award that he broke into tears and said he didn't deserve it. If anything, the award should have gone to the church, he told me - and then began to list an impressive catalog of mission activities in which church members are involved.

I first became acquainted with Clyde's Chapel in 1999, when the church believed in missions so much that it gave pastor Robert Cook a year's leave of absence to help coordinate Baptist Men's disaster relief and recovery efforts in Honduras following Hurricane Mitch - and helped to support him while he was there.

Cook later went off to graduate school, but the church's love of missions remained firmly in place.

In recent years, the church has sent volunteers to nine different countries, three of those for disaster relief or recovery projects. Another team will be heading to Armenia this summer.

The church has paid to sponsor indigenous church planters in Honduras, South Africa, and Armenia.

Members also have hosted children from Belarus who were affected by the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, and sponsored children at the "Lighthouse" in the Gaza Strip.

They are helping to fund construction of a Christian school in Haiti, and helped with the renovation of a "baby house" used by the Door of Hope ministry in Johannesburg, South Africa.

When calls came to donate food boxes for projects in Iraq, North Korea, and Honduras, Clyde's Chapel consistently led its association in the number of boxes collected.

And that's just the overseas component. Members have assisted with construction projects in at least six mission churches in North Carolina, have sent mission teams to eight states, and are currently sponsoring a church planter in Montana.

They've responded to seven disaster relief/recovery events in the U.S., and got creative when Hurricane Fran came through and toppled trees on the homes and land of many church members. Men of the church removed the trees, sold the timber, and gave the resulting $5,000 to a neighboring African-American church for a new fellowship hall - then helped them to build it. They're currently involved with Katrina-related rebuilding projects in Alabama and Mississippi.

Youth get involved, too. They've been on World Changers projects for 10 consecutive years - and the church has sponsored a clinic with the NCBM Medical Dental Bus six times in recent years.

In their spare time, handymen in the church build wheelchair ramps and do needed home repairs for handicapped or elderly members, and women of the church have stepped forward to cook and serve food for events like a NCBM Hispanic convention held in 2005.

But wait, there's more! A dozen or more members participate actively on lay renewal teams, and the church has sponsored seven block parties for area subdivisions. They've raised money for cancer research, assisted local family with medical expences, and helped the local football team meet travel costs.

The church takes missions involvement so seriously that you have to wonder if it remains small because prospective new members fear they'd have to work too hard to keep up with the old-timers.

I've encountered churches - including some that are much larger than Clyde's Chapel - that don't even consider getting involved in missions or supporting church planters or serving their community because they seem to think they're just too small.

If I could spell the sound of a sharp buzzer indicating "Wrong!" I would.

Clyde's Chapel, like many like-minded small churches across our state, proves the truth that you don't have to be a big church to have a big vision and a big mission.

You just have to take Jesus seriously, and say, "Will do."