Walk Through Bethlehem

We are so blessed to be a part of such a great church! We love Bethlehem Church and love the people! We led and hosted a small group this past semester, as well, which was also a huge blessing to us. One of the coolest things that we did together was to serve together in something called "Walk Through Bethlehem".

Our church has committed itself to serving our community over ourselves. During the Christmas season, one way we choose to do this is by investing money into it via giftcards for gas, buying someone's groceries or buying Christmas for someone. We could do a Christmas show of some sort but our leadership feels strongly in making sure that we are ministering to others outside the walls of our church by going to them on their terms rather than inviting them to come get to know us on our terms. I love this about our church!

So one sunday night in December, all of our sunday night small groups met at the church for dinner (soup and sandwiches) and then to break out into groups and head out to stores/gas stations to bless people.
I randomly got this pic of Nick, one of our group members and it turned out so well I had to post it :-)

After dinner, we grabbed a group shot, as well. Our associate pastor, Adam Bishop, photobombed our pic (the one with the raised arm). LOL! This is a serving opportunity for the whole family, hence our crazy kids!

Our small group ended up dividing into 3 groups to go out and bless people. We made a plan to meet up at a froyo place after to share our experiences!

For our group of 2 families, we headed to Bethlehem Target. Derek and I are the most talkative and so Lisa and Jeff kind of watched the kids while Derek and I (separately) walked the isles looking for someone to bless. We just prayed about it ahead of time, asking the Lord to lead us to someone. Turns out that Derek found a grandmother who was buying some gifts for their neighbors kids. The parents were both out of a job and she was trying to help out. Derek told her to continue shopping and that he would love to help with the purchases and he would meet her up front in just a bit. Then he came and talked to us. We were all excited!

He met her up front and ended up buying about $48 of toys for her. Which left us with $2 which I gave to a lady in the starbucks line.

Heres the thing about a walk through Bethlehem. We dont tell people "hi, i'm from X church". We just bless them, period. We show them kindness and love of Christ without feeling the need to advertise our church. This, after all, isnt a marketing scheme for our church. We genuinely want to help others with no expectations in return. I'm telling you, Bethlehem is different than any church I've ever been a part of :-)

So I'll shamelessly invite anyone who wants to find a church like ours to come visit! We have 4 services: Saturdays at 5pm, Sundays at 8:30, 9:45 and 11:15.
www.bethlehemchurch.us