CULLMAN – On Saturday, the student ministry at West Point’s burgeoning Temple Baptist Church held a field day, which was the culmination of a week of outreach within Cullman County, according to Youth Pastor Andrew Heptinstall.
“This field day came out of what we were doing this week. We called it Operation Blitz. We basically just went out in the community and served, showed the community that we at Temple Baptist Church (care). We helped at nursing homes, at parks, doing anything around the community that helps,” Heptinstall said.
The field day included inflatables, a petting zoo and face-painting, along with free food and drinks. It was held at the Old Nesmith Park football field. Heptinstall said he placed the event at this location to reach a neglected part of town.
“We looked at our congregation, we looked and realized that we don’t have many from the city of Cullman. And this area is such a special area for me because there is low-income housing and they need people to show they’re interested in them too,” he explained.
Heptinstall says that the event was limited because of the immense heat that plagued the day, but that the free food and drinks helped the event stay on track and really emphasized what Temple Baptist is all about.
“Families want and need something to do, but they also want to be able to do it in an affordable way,” he said.
Some families were invited in person by Temple Baptist students in their door-to-door efforts, but some, such as Samantha Walker and her son, just happened to see the event and stopped by.
“This is great, it’s just great,” Walker said as she squinted in the late-morning sun. “It’s just wonderful that they’re doing this, but boy it’s hot, you know. We’ve only been here for about five minutes and it’s so hot, I don’t know how they’re doing it.”
Heptinstall hopes to grow this event into an annual occurrence.
“We tried to keep the publicity to a minimum, because we really didn’t know what we had on our hands. I was hoping, I had a number in my head, to get about 200 people through here. The final number was around 170, but it was so hot. I really think that was a lot of it,” he said.
Heptinstall and the students he leads at Temple Baptist Church “want to be the hands and feet of Christ.”
“Here at the Nesmith area, like everywhere,” he said, “people need to know we love them.”
For more information about Temple Baptist Church, visit www.templebaptistcullman.com.
See a photo gallery at http://qrne.ws/fieldday.
