Easter weekend was a great time for our small and relatively new church. I have to say that it was Easter weekend because we did more than the traditional Sunday service. We engaged our community on both Saturday with the Vine City and English Avenue (the Bluff) community event and Sunday with the Atlanta University Center students. I am pastoring the kind of church where I am also honored to be a member.

It started with a simple idea of doing a summer project cleaning the Vine City community. The goal was the kind of service where we could invite college students and mission teams from all over to participate. We had been meeting with the local community leaders for months and had the reputation of “that church that serves,” which is awesome. Although a clean up is needed, it was important to me not to tell the community what we were going to do, but to ask them what they needed done. That is a mistake that many churches and organizations make.

As we were meeting with a local leader we were informed that they needed help with an Easter egg hunt in the hardest area in the neighborhood. We immediately said yes. I know eggs, bunnies, and baskets have nothing to do with Jesus' ressurection, but service does. We provided most of the food, drinks, a Portable Toilet, and some volunteers from our church and 5 students from Spelman College (who had never been in that community before). All of this was done in partnership with West Ridge Church who also provided a Moon Bounce for the children. The local civic leaders were blown away. They told us that without our contributions the day would not had been a success.

It was beautiful to see our church members and the college students engaging with people who were homeless, alcoholics, drug addicted, prostitutes, civil rights leaders, community activists, and roughly 150 adorable children. We have always had the desire to touch the community in this way, and to see it happening in such a quick fashion is overwhelming. We are actually doing the work we set out to do over 18 months ago. We fed over 300 people and had the opportunity to touch their lives and build more service opportunities in the future. Now, we have plenty of support from local leaders for our week of service!

Then on Sunday we had our worship gathering and took the opportunity to serve once again. We meet in the midst of the largest collection of African American campuses in the world. So, we always feed people after our gatherings. One big lesson I learned as a college pastor was, IF YOU FEED THEM THEY WILL COME! This time we decided to grill out on the “Promenade” in front of the church were students are walking back and forth.

We fed hundreds of students, campus police, university workers, and even had some of them tweet about, “the church giving away food.” With every plate we told them about our worship gatherings and handed them a flyer inviting them join us. Several students walked right in and took part in our worship. We even had one of the civic leaders who were impacted by our service the day before, and a couple Spelman students that served with us come. That is impact!

Make no mistake about it we have an underlying motive. We are building creditability to communicate the good news of Jesus. We will unashamedly serve the community like crazy people all for the opportunity to look them in the eyes and tell them the most important thing that can ever be told. We will by God’s grace continue to serve the neighborhood, because people won’t believe what we say, until they first see it in our actions. It is not enough to merely love God; we must also love the people He loves! That is why our church has had more times of service to others than we have had in corporate worship. But because we serve, we have students and community leaders helping us in our mission.

Jesus said, “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”  Mark 10:45 Should it be a surprise that a church serves others on Easter, when that day is the culmination of the ultimate act of service?  So, we will engage the city of Atlanta, for the glory of an amazing God who showed us how to serve on a rugged cross.