Love Legacy Chapel, headquartered in Middletown, New York, USA, regularly conducts outreach programmes for individuals in need of social support, including both employed and unemployed members of the surrounding communities. In this Sunday’s interview, Apostle (Dr.) William Shelders discusses the chapel’s intervention programmes with our correspondent.
Q: We understand that your church provides special outreach services to its communities. Can you let us know how this works?
Lovelegacy has a major outreach to the community, and our goal is to make sure that we are filling the gaps where community and government is not able to provide for the needs of the people. It is not just people that are unemployed, but we realize that there are even people that are gainfully employed, but their income is not enough to get them by.
So, areas like our annual back to school event, which provides book bags with exercise books, notebooks, pens, and stationeries for children. We have been doing it over the years, since the entire life of the ministry, over 10 years. This year, for instance, again, we did it given 1, 000 books.
We try to gather enough resources for up to 10,000 children every year, which we do. During the back to school season in August of every year, we are also in a community providing groceries, vegetables, fruits, frozen chicken, fish and beef. We do that every Sunday. You can come in here every Sunday, get enough for you and your family for the whole week.
Q: Is that what you have done today?
As you can see, we just finished serving a community all these type of food, groceries. Again, it is not only people that are unemployed. There are people that are employed, but their income is not enough, and so they are able to come in and get something that gives them a little break from spending on food and groceries.
Beside that, we also take care of the warming center, which is a building dedicated by the community for those that are homeless. They provide a place for them during the winter, from the month of November to April, where they can go in the evening, sleep and come out in the morning. So, what we do as a church is to bring them dinner in the evening and also provide them with breakfast in the morning before they get out to go about their day. In between, we also provide them with warm clothes, socks, gloves, hats, winter hats, and things that will keep them warm while they are out.
Then, of course, we have periodic events, like our carnival of love, where we will line up barbecue food, stand outside the whole yard and invite the whole community to come in. And, you know, have cooked meal. Once a month also, we open our doors for the community to come in.
We have cooked meals every Sunday for the church members specifically. But once a month, we open the doors for the community to join the church members to come have a three course meal, appetizers, and desserts, warm food once a month on Sunday. So, this is what we are doing, and many more.
Q: What is the motivation and how do you mobilize resources?
Well, the motivation is very simple. We model after Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ went to church, but if you observe what Jesus did, he was predominantly in the community. And anytime he found a need in a community, he positioned himself to be a resource to provide that need in a community. And we saw he provided wine for the wedding in Cana. We saw he had a group of over 5, 000 people that were hungry, He prayed over five loaves and three fishes that became enough to feed them. So, Jesus was concerned about the necessities of the people in the community. And as followers of Jesus, we we are doing the same thing.
Of course, by wisdom, we have members that are willing to contribute for us to be able to get some of the things that we get to give away for free. And beside that, we also collaborate with local farms, local supermarkets and local organizations.
Some of them bakeries, have bread that they are not able to sell. They are willing to give it away. We sign up with them, we go around, we pick them up, and also turn around and use it as a blessing to people.
We go to farms that have excess fruits and vegetables. Instead of them to leave them to rot, we will pick them up and also bring it to the community. So, with other supermarkets, a lot of work. We need a lot of people to come help us with this work, because to go around and pick all these things, it takes money to rent a truck. It takes money to buy the gas. Church members also give towards this. So, this is, in a nutshell how we are able to do this.
Q: Do you have any support from government?
Not at all, zero. We don’t have any support from the government. It is all members and people in the community helping us.
