my baum shelter

I can’t believe I haven’t talked about this before on the blog, especially since it is a part of my life that I love so much! One of the things that fills some of my days each week is a ministry in our church called the May Street Market. I volunteer as the Volunteer Coordinator of the Market, but I think that title makes my role sound much more important than it actually is. The truth is, the church staff of our Baptist Center, Dan Freemyer and Judi Glover, do all the hard work for this ministry and all the other Baptist Center ministries.

One of the reasons Fred and I fell quickly in love with our church was its commitment to people PERIOD. No conditions at all. They love people – all people, no matter what. Our church is located near downtown Fort Worth and there is a large homeless population as well as a large population of families on welfare or fixed incomes in our church’s neighborhood. As our new pastor, Brent Beasley, said in a sermon not too long ago ~ before coming to Broadway Baptist Church, he would see a homeless man walking the streets downtown and think, “oh, there’s a homeless man,” but after coming to Broadway, he sees a homeless man walking the streets downtown and thinks, “oh, there’s Jerry.” Our church membership is made up of a diverse group of families and I love that sitting next to a homeless person is not an unusual occurrence for us in our church.

Anyway, the May Street Market is one of the many ways our church serves our community. It’s a small grocery store (about 10 aisles) where families from our community can come “shop” for groceries once a month. I say “shop” because there is no charge for any of the items. They are allowed to take a certain number of items from each aisle based on the size of their family. We have upwards of 150 families that come through our Market each month and due to the economy, that number just seems to be growing and growing. What is remarkable to me, though, is the number of people who donate food and money keeps growing and growing, too.

There’s just something about serving others that allows me to see how interconnected we all are, why Love matters, and how real God is.

Dan preached about one of my favorite stories regarding the May Street Market a few months back. The whole sermon is terrific, but the part about the Market starts at the 11:40 mark. You can hear it here (it’s just under 7 minutes long).