Adversity or Opportunity?

Author: 
Barbara E. Lanctot
Edition: 
April 2010

At Calvary Baptist Church in Wilmington, OH, the question, “adversity or opportunity?” has been asked for the past 18 months. You see, more than 10,000 people lost their jobs when DHL decided to move their operations out of Wilmington. Calvary Baptist had 30 families directly affected by this when one or both parents lost jobs.

You would think at a time like this, tithing and offerings would be down.  People would lose faith in God and would stop helping others.  Not so at Calvary!  Sure, our tithing has been a little lower because an unemployment check is much less than a paycheck.  However, our giving has not changed.  In fact, it has probably increased!  You see, when God asks us to help others, we don’t think twice about it. 

Sometimes we borrow an idea, change it a little, and run with it.  A good example is the Baptist Global Response In-Home Care Kit.  This is a compilation of medical and hygiene supplies that Baptist Global Response is asking churches, groups, or individuals to provide to assist caregivers in Africa who are taking care of home-bound, terminally ill patients.  We took this idea and used it to provide cleaning supplies to the residents of our local homeless shelter when they move into their own apartments.  These people have already been through so much.  Calvary thought this would be a way to ease their burden of stocking their new home. 

When the earthquake hit Haiti, Pastor Dennis Humphreys announced to our congregation that the following Sunday we would take up a special offering for the Southern Baptist Disaster Relief Fund for Haiti.  After our regular tithes and offerings were collected, the offering plates were passed around again for this special offering.  We collected $1,262!  Praise God!

Here are just a few of the on-going mission projects that we participate in:

  • Provide clothing, food, New Testaments, school supplies, Christmas stockings, and Easter baskets for the residents and clients of the local homeless shelter and domestic violence center.
  • Provide diapers, clothing, and volunteer time at our local women’s center
  • Provide blankets for some of our needy families in Wilmington.
  • Provide money to Pure Water Pure Love through the Woman’s Missionary Union to send water filters and purifiers, as well as money for wells, to missionaries around the world.
  • Provide soup and vegetable cans for our local homeless shelter on “Souper Bowl” Sunday.
  • Provide annual monetary donations to the Greater Dayton Association of Baptists, the Ray Roberts Offering for State Missions in Ohio, the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for our North American Missionaries and the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for our International Missionaries.
  • Provide shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child.

As an Acts 1:8 church, Calvary Baptist Church sees our adversity as an opportunity to help others that are less fortunate than we are.  Yes, our local economy is down, our unemployment rate is high, and there are very few jobs in this area.  However, there are many more people experiencing much worse situations than we can imagine. Jesus tells us in Matthew 25:40, “And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these, My brethren, you did it to Me.’”

What about you?  Do you see adversity or opportunity?  Allow God to help you see through your adversity and realize the opportunity He has placed before you.

 

~ Barbara E. Lanctot is the Secretary and WMU Director at Calvary Baptist Church of Wilmington, Ohio.