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Utah church invests in community Christmas

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This story originally appeared in December 20 edition of Baptist Press.

PRICE, Utah (BP) – Gospel Community Church lives up to its name at Christmas.

This year the congregation of about 30 adults and their offspring bought Christmas gifts for 59 individuals in the high desert community east of the snow-covered Wasatch Mountains.

“We are always looking for opportunities to engage with the community,” Pastor Chris Polito told Baptist Press. “God has blessed us and we want to love our community by helping out where we can.”

Three years ago the Southern Baptist church decided to use its excess-of-budget offerings for the community, “rather than just socking it away in a bank account,” Polito said. The church allocates 3 percent of undesignated budget income for the Cooperative Program, the way Southern Baptists work together to share God’s love worldwide.

Gospel Community’s three unpaid pastors and their wives – Polito, Nick Teny and Tony Martinez – came up with the plan to spend the excess dollars on Christmas gifts for some of those in the town of about 8,300 who struggle financially.

“God has blessed us with a congregation of people who are generous givers,” Polito said. “We just put it out on social media to nominate people who needed help this Christmas.”

 

This year the budget overage came to $8,700, including $700 donated by a teen who gave the money he earned doing a community service project.

“When you see how God is working in the congregation you can see the growth over the three years,” Polito said. The first year Gospel Community was able to help provide Christmas for 39 people. In year two, 45 people.

This year, the 59 individuals consisted of 11 families and nine mentally challenged teens in a group home. Each family was notified they had been chosen, and were given a form to fill out and return including clothing sizes and gift preferences.

“We went to various places to support as many local businesses as we could,” Polito said. “With the info on the forms, we could shop pretty specifically.”

The allocated $150 per person meant each individual received some if not all their wishes, including a hoverboard, ear buds, a Barbie and much more.

Saturday afternoon in the church worship center all the nearly 300 gifts were wrapped.

“It was chaos, crazy,” member Liz Konakis told Baptist Press. “It was wild and crazy and carrying on.”

Each gift was tagged with a number. Each number was attached to a recipient’s name.     

“Some big dinosaur had three ladies wrapping it,” Konakis said. Other gifts: pillows, a bean bag chair, curling iron, boots, hats, clothing and a Bible. “Trying to get it all organized was a little crazy.”

Six teams set out after church – Teny had preached on “the advent (arrival) of love” – in cars, SUVs and pickup trucks stuffed with packages and armed with addresses.

Some houses weren’t so easy to find. Not all houses have visible addresses. Some people protect their neighbors from unknown people wanting to find them, even when they hear the “outlandish” tale that they’re just bringing gifts. When all else failed, some recipients were called for direction, but the phones weren’t answered because the number calling was unknown. 

With effort, however, each family received its gifts. At each home, the gospel was concisely shared, prayer requests were sought, the requests and residents were prayed for, and multiple calls – from both recipients and deliverers – of “Merry Christmas!” were heard.

But that wasn’t the end.

Several delivery teams then ate together at local restaurants, having missed their Sunday dinner. The increased camaraderie among church members was an unanticipated blessing from the Lord, Polito said.

“In everything we do, we try to glorify the Lord,” Polito said. “With this Christmas project, we want to strengthen the connection between the church – the bride of Christ – and the community.”

The “pastors and wives” team already are talking about next year.

“We want to be able to branch out a little more, to build relationships with the families instead of just dropping off gifts,” Polito said. “We’re going to be inviting the mom and dad to shop with us.

“All three years we’ve been doing this, we’ve been doing it the same day ‘Shop with a cop’ have been doing it,” the pastor continued. “We’ve seen them laughing and building rapport with the community, and we want to do that too, for God’s honor and glory.”

by Karen L. Willoughby for Baptist Press. Used By Permission.

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Concern Center ministers to the needy

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Utah Food Bank makes pallet drops of food four times a week to the center.
Utah Food Bank makes pallet drops of food four times a week to the center.

Salt Lake County – The Baptist Concern Center sits 10 minutes from downtown SLC, provides food for the needy, and so much more.

There are Bible studies, English as a Second Language classes – during which youngsters have their own Bible study – and a supportive environment where the people who come feel respected, cared about, and listened to. 

It’s a ministry started 54 years ago by the Salt Lake Baptist Association. It’s also a ministry new nearly every day when people come for help who find out about it from friends, flyers, and state-supplied lists of helping entities.

“We share Jesus whenever we can,” Director Sonia Gutierrez told UI Connections. “We tell them they can have a change in their lives, and we love to see how God changes their life.”

Dora Pineda was one such person. Gutierrez has watched God change Pineda’s life. She first came for food. Gutierrez befriended her, and in time Pineda called begging for help of a different kind. 

“She was going through difficult things,” Gutierrez said, diplomatic in her words despite the unvarnished testimony Pineda gave at the recent semi-annual meeting of the Salt Lake Baptist Association. 

“I told Sonia, ‘Please don’t leave me alone. I don’t know how to get out of this,’” Pineda told UI Connections, as translated by Gutierrez.

Director, Sonia Gutierrez shares with clients about Spanish Language Bible study classes that are offered at the Concern Center

Together the two Spanish-speaking women prayed to God for His help as Pineda grew in her trust in God and within four months became freed from her drug addiction. 

“Now she comes every day,” Gutierrez said. “She asked if she could help, and I saw she was very honest.”

Volunteers are essential to the Baptist Concern Center’s ministry: people to move boxes from the parking lot to the nearly 5,000-square-foot building; to unpack the boxes inside the storage room; to do the shopping; to talk with clients when they first arrive, and to clean up inside and out at the end of each workday. There is also a need for someone to pick up “rescue groceries” from places not on the Utah Food Bank’s routes.

Rescue Groceries are picked up from area stores and volunteers include them among the supplies they get from the Utah Food Bank and USDA

Donations of food, diapers, and home cleaning supplies also are needed, as is financial support for needed items that are not donated. This year the Baptist Concern Center served about 25,000 people.  

In addition to helping shelve food as it is unloaded from a Utah Food Bank truck – Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays it’s rescue groceries and baked goods from area grocers; canned food, dried food products such as rice and beans, produce and dairy items come in on Fridays – Pineda and other volunteers shop for those who come to the Baptist Concern Center between 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays; from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays; and from 9 a.m. to noon Saturdays.

“We still need more volunteers every day, because every day we have a lot of work,” Gutierrez said.

The Concern Center’s food distribution process is simple and effective: People wanting food can come once a month (more often if there’s an emergency) to 1235 California Avenue – the lettering on the 1300 South side of the one-story white stucco and cinder block building says “Esperanza Viva” (Living Hope.) 

Clients this year have come from Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, Russia, Ukraine, Utah, and elsewhere.

View of the Baptist Concern Center from California Avenue

“Yes, we give food, but that’s not all,” Gutierrez said. “We are showing and sharing the love of Jesus in everything we do, every way we can.”  

The clients are given a gospel message when they first come into the Baptist Concern Center. They fill out or update their application form required by the Utah Food Bank, after which they are given a ticket number. That number, along with their name and the number of people in the family, and the vehicle (which might say “bike,” “stroller” or even “walking”) is written on a square post-it note and stuck to the designated wall in the storage area.

Volunteer shoppers take the post-it notes and start filling a shopping cart with the quantity of food needed for that size family. While the shoppers are working in the storage room, the intended recipients sit on plastic chairs in the waiting room or wander around several tables on which are various brochures that might be of interest, as well as gospel tracts, and even a table of cookbooks and “healthy eating” resources.

When their name is called, if not before, the clients go back outside to their vehicle, where the shopper meets them, calling out their number while looking for the vehicle. After the client hands the shopper their number (to help make sure clients get their own order and not that of someone else with the same name) they load their vehicle while engaging in conversation with the shopper. At the Holy Spirit’s leading, those conversations turn into divine appointments.

Families receive more than food. They are encouraged by friendly volunteers that truly care about the clients they serve.

At least 70 and up to 80 or more people come to the Baptist Concern Center Monday evenings and Saturday mornings. ESL classes start at 4 p.m. every Sunday, and the Bible Study starts at 5 p.m. Sunday

“Some who come here also come to our church,” Gutierrez said, referring to Canyons Church in Salt Lake City, where her husband, Rafael Gutierrez, is the Hispanic pastor. “We have people coming here from Salt Lake City, West Valley City, West Jordan, Kearns, Midvale, and other towns in Salt Lake County.”

Pineda is one of nine who have made a profession of faith in Jesus as their Lord and Savior through their connection with the Baptist Concern Center this year. This includes Pineda’s husband.

“Rafael led him to the Lord,” Gutierrez said of her husband and Dora Pineda’s husband. “Dora loves to study the Bible. She loves to pray. She loves to learn about Jesus.”

Again, translated by Gutierrez, Dora Pineda said, “I want to tell everybody about Jesus. Jesus changed my life.”

That change started with food freely given by the Concern Center and those who help support it.

By Karen L. Willoughby
A frequent contributor to UI Connections and Baptist Press. She can be reached at karenwby@gmail.com  

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Gary McKean melds missions and the law 

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Gary and Naomi McKean are recognized for 15 years of volunteer staff service by UISBC Executive Director, Rob Lee
Gary and Naomi McKean are recognized for 15 years of volunteer staff service by UISBC Executive Director, Rob Lee

Layton, Utah – Retired attorney Gary McKean says he plans to keep going “all the way home,” and heaven is that home.

“I’m not done until God tells me I’m done,” the legal consultant – and missions and partnerships coordinator – for the Utah Idaho Southern Baptist Convention told UI Connections.

McKean and Naomi, his wife since 1965, received an appreciation award at the recent UISBC annual meeting for 15 years of voluntary ministry service to Southern Baptists in Utah and Idaho.

“Gary’s work with our churches and legal guidance has saved our churches thousands of dollars and many headaches,” UISBC Executive Director Rob Lee said. “The State Convention is very blessed in Gary’s service as our legal counselor in helping our churches with land, building and body issues that needed legal guidance. 

“Without Gary’s legal guidance our state convention of churches would not function as effectively,” Lee continued. “Gary has assisted us in having policies and procedures in place to guide our convention in supporting our churches.”

Gary and Naomi McKean have been married and served churches together for fifty-seven years

The McKeans have been active Southern Baptists since they first moved from Florida to Utah 45 years ago to work on government law, in time becoming the Cache County Attorney. Gary and Naomi McKean have been part of two church starts, Today they are members of Sojourn Church in Layton, which was planted in 2019 by Mountain View Baptist Church in Layton.

An ordained deacon, McKean has served as minister of education, Bible teacher and “I’ve done some preaching.” He also served on the SBC Executive Committee for eight years – 2006-2014 – as UISBC’s representative.

Naomi McKean, Gary’s prayer warrior, was a first grade teacher for 46 years and retired in 2007 from Layton Christian Academy. Naomi has served in children’s ministries as a teacher and leader as well as in the ministries of outreach, prayer, food bank, and wherever needed. 

The couple reared three children, who have given them five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Gary with children in Sierra Leone

Together the McKeans have taken multiple international mission trips and have a particular interest in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Their involvement there is through Light of the World Ministry, which operates orphanages and constructs village water wells. Together they also are Mission Service Corps volunteer missionaries through the North American Mission Board.

“Becoming a Christian means you understand and accept the gospel message,” McKean said. “God made us; We are sinners; through God’s grace we are redeemed in Christ; and we are to share that good news with others.

“Christ said to the church, ‘Go out.’ He said that not just to the organized group, but to every Christian,” McKean continued. “Part of the individual’s life is to be sharing Christ. One of the things we’re trying to promote organizationally is that a church is to engage in missions, aware that it’s really the people who do the missions, and they do it by going.”

In his role as partnerships coordinator, McKean has developed the connection between Northwest Georgia churches and Utah-Idaho churches, now in its second year. He also works with churches in UISBC to partner with each other, strengthening each other’s churches in outreach as well as building enduring relationships, strengthening and encouraging each other while reaching still others with the message of God’s unconditional love for each individual.

“We have a lot of small churches,” McKean noted. “In Matthew 28:19-20 – but really we are told in all the gospels – we are to go out. When two or more churches work together, they can make a greater impact. So we encourage churches to join in missions together.

“If churches are going to walk the walk of following Jesus, they need to look outside of themselves,” the missions coordinator continued. “Missions is reflective of where the church is spiritually.”

McKean, an active member of Christian Legal Society, also serves UISBC as legal consultant. For the 15 years since he retired from the Davis County attorney’s office, “He has assisted churches with updating their constitutions, bylaws and legal documents in order for them to function without having issues with local, county, state and federal government,” Lee said. 

“He has assisted our church plants in laying a good foundation so that good practices will benefit the new church as it grows and matures,” the executive director said. “In our society today if you ignore the legal and business side of your church you are open to many potential legal issues that would impact the church’s ability to be a light in the community.”

As stated in McKean’s report at the 2022 UISBC annual meeting, “Each church should take the time to review its governing documents (articles of incorporation, constitution/statement of beliefs, bylaws, and policies). Churches should be made aware of legal trends, developments, and concerns as these may impact the church’s ministry. There have been some church closures and dissolution. They need to be aware that the trustees have a legal responsibility to lawfully dissolve the church entity and properly dispose of any assets.”

McKean helps churches with all these issues, and leads legal seminars. Contact mckeanmsc@gmail.com or through the UISBC office for more information or to schedule an appointment.

“I encourage churches to visit the UISBC website – uisbc.org – and look at the sample legal documents and materials posted on the ‘Resources’ page and ‘Legal’ tab,” McKean said.

“As long as there have been churches there have been legal aspects, but over the last 30 to 40 years, the legal climate has been changing significantly,” the attorney said. “The essential point is that a church has two natures: spiritual and secular. Developing law affects both. Churches need to be aware of the law and take it seriously.”

McKean said he was reared in a Presbyterian home in Pennsylvania and “always trusted God would take care of me and lead me.” When his plan to go to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, was sidetracked because of flat feet, he went to Tulane University in New Orleans.

It was while working in Florida as an attorney that he and Naomi, daughter of an Assembly of God pastor, connected in 1970 with Southern Baptists. They wanted to serve together in a church, and friends led them to South Venice Baptist Church in Venice, Florida.

“The key for me is simply trusting God,” McKean said. “Your faith is reflected in what you do. In law and in life, there is always a blending of faith in what you do. faith has been foundational to my practice and what I do. Micah 6:8 has been a guide for me in law.”  

By Karen L. Willoughby
A frequent contributor to UI Connections and Baptist Press. She can be reached at karenwby@gmail.com 

UI Staff and Georgia Pastors
Utah Idaho Staff with Georgia Baptist pastors
G and fam getting pumpkins for Fall event
Gary with his family picking out pumpkins in the Fall
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Naomi serving children in one of the churches they have served
g with children in Sierra Leone
Gary with children he has served on mission in Sierra Leone

For more information contact

Gary_Mckean
Gary McKean

Missions & Partnership Coordinator

mckeanmsc@gmail.com

801.682.6362

SBCCalled

SBCCalled.com launches to encourage young adults to answer the call to ministry

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Louisiana – One of the greatest challenges facing the future of our denomination centers around the lack of leaders being called out and developed through our Next Generation ministries in most of our churches.  Steve Masters, BCM director at LSU, has created a website which is chock-full of resources every Pastor, Youth Pastor, College Pastor, Campus Minister or anyone else invested in the lives of young people, should know about. Honestly, EVERY Baptist church and ministry leader should know this site.

We are talking about the SBCcalled.com website. This site could immediately be helpful to you and your church as you attempt to help young people navigate a possible call to ministry.

The first thing you will see at the site is the purpose statement and it is as follow:

Welcome to SBC Called. The purpose of this website is to provide information, resources, and training for High School Students and College Students who feel called to ministry. We hope this website will help these students with their journey into ministry.

The resources are almost overwhelming. There are so many helpful things scattered around the site but the main tabs are as follows…

  • Preparation – This section will help you in areas of personal preparation as you explore your call to ministry.
  • Resources – This section contains resources that will be helpful in your path to ministry.
  • Education – This section provides helpful information for continuing your education as you prepare for ministry.
  • High School Students – This section is to help High School students with your calling into ministry.
  • College Students Ministry and Missions Opportunities – This section contains information about ministry and missions opportunities throughout the SBC.

The tab titled “SBC INFO” covers information related to the IMB, NAMB, the CP, and the BFM. The site also describes the basic anatomy of Baptist life and how associations, state conventions, and our national entities serve our cooperative effort. Each of our six seminaries and every one of our over 50 Baptist-related colleges are mentioned and linked to from this site. It is literally the one-stop-shop for those who serve our high school and college students as they help our young people consider the possibility of a future in ministry.

The fact is, most of us have heard of the discouraging news related to the lack of young people entering vocational ministry. A number of our states have more churches than they do pastors to shepherd those churches. 

This resource is one that will help your ministry and your church identify, encourage, and equip your young people to navigate their call to ministry. Desperately needed, this site is appreciated and ought to be regularly utilized. God had placed this burden on the heart of Steve Masters which was ultimately fleshed out in the form of this website. 

Please let your ministry friends, as well as, any young people you know who might be interested in ministry know about the SBCcalled.com website and let’s pray God uses it in a mighty way.

The article was reprinted with permission from SBCVoices.com by the author, Louisiana Pastor, Jay Adkins. 

Another great resource that goes along with this website is a new book launched this week (November 1, 2022) by Scott Pace and Shane Pruitt 

Ministry comes with many weighty responsibilities. Ministry leaders are called to teach, serve, and lead. But in leading those under their care, there comes a moment when they recognize the future leaders under their leadership. With this recognition comes an all too familiar question: What comes next?

In Calling Out the Called, Scott Pace and Shane Pruitt answer this question by giving direction, encouragement, and a charge for ministry leaders to recognize the future leaders in their midst and do what needs to be done for the future of ministry: the calling out of the called. 

For more information, checkout www.callingoutthecalledbook.com 

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