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Wednesday, May. 27, 2009

Rehoboth Baptists emphasize mission

Local Baptists focused on their duty to others as the Rehoboth Baptist Association held its Mission Emphasis Week last week.

The Rehoboth Association comprises 54 churches in Houston, Peach, Crawford and Taylor counties along with churches in southern Bibb and northern Macon counties.

“We do this once a year,” said the Rev. Tim Millwood, director of the Rehoboth Baptist Association. “The week helps to educate about our association and the ministries that we promote.”

Associations are the oldest entity in the Baptist denomination after the church. The oldest Baptist association in the country was founded in 1707 in Philadelphia. Churches would band together and associate in fellowship, ministry and doctrine.

The Rehoboth Association was founded in 1838, making it older than the Southern Baptist Convention by seven years.

Millwood said many people come into a local church knowing little about the Rehoboth Association.

“It can be easy to write things off if you don’t understand why they exist.”

One ministry of the Rehoboth Association is the Christian Social Ministry, a food bank that has operated for 15 years.

The Christian Social Ministry normally provides food for about 4,500 families a year, but given the economy, that number is expected to reach 5,000 in 2009.

Rehoboth also has a Disaster Relief Ministry that works in partnership with the American Red Cross providing services such as feeding, cleanup, recovery, chaplains, communications and child-care after floods, hurricanes and tornadoes.

The disaster relief team provided services in Macon after last year’s Mother’s Day tornado and helped out as well in Crawford and Sumter counties.

The team spent 16 weeks in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina and served 450,000 meals to those displaced by the storm.

The Rehoboth Association also has ministries for the migrant farmers who pass through this region during picking season, providing medical care and teaching them English as well as ministering to their souls.

Chapel services are provided for truck drivers at a local truck stop.

“We try to pattern our ministries after Acts 1:8,” Millwood said. “Locally, regionally and across the Earth.”

The Appalachian Ministry helps to provide clothes, school supplies and toys to families in one of the poorest areas of the United States, and mission trips every year to Moldova in southeast Europe have established a pastor-training center as well as two churches.

Millwood said that while the week is about education, it is also about volunteering.

“You have to give the oldest generation credit. They really give their time. But the younger generation has to grasp this vision and come alongside them and be part of it. It is a time in your life when you are very busy, with a job, with children. But we have to embrace the spirit of service, ministry and volunteerism or it will die.”

Donations are taken constantly for the Appalachian Ministry. New or gently-used clothing as well as new school supplies, book bags and toys are transported to the area several times a year.

“Bicycles that are in good shape but might need a little work are great, “Millwood said. “These are children who have never had a bicycle in their life.” Volunteers will fix up bikes that need minor work.

Donations can be taken to the Rehoboth Association office at 744 Lake Joy Road.

Contact Alline Kent at allinekent@cox.net.