2 Radical Acts of Kindness to Show God's Love

By Kaler Carpenter

How can a small church make a big impact? By serving their community with the passion and love of Jesus Christ. It's a simple idea that yields powerful results. On a Friday evening in August, a small group of Christians meeting in an old storefront in Oneonta's lower deck neighborhood, showed their upstate New York town just how much God cares for them with two radical acts of kindness.

A Typical Friday Evening Church Gathering

The evening started off like a typical Friday Gathering at The Redemption Movement. People trickled in as a free spaghetti and meatball dinner was served, and the weather was nice so people ate and fellowshiped outside. The group even had some fun as one member shared a custom cake made to look like the Pastor's old pickup truck used to accomplish service projects (The Big Blue Ministry Machine), which made for a fun photo op.

After the meal was cleaned up, people found their way into the meeting room and shared stories from the week's previous service projects. The last week of August is a big week for Oneonta and The Redemption Movement as SUNY Oneonta students return for the Fall Semester. The group shared their experiences of helping students move into the dorms on the previous Sunday, and providing free rides in downtown Oneonta the night before to help keep the roads safe. The church was in the middle of Welcome Week 2013, which calls for 6 service projects in 1 week to help make the returning students feel welcomed.

But with a Not-so-Typical Church Message

After sharing stories, an acoustic worship set was played and then the Pastor taught from the Bible. The lesson looked at Jesus' Great Commission to the church in Matthew 28:18-20, and related it back to The Redemption Movement's own commission of Connect --> Discover --> Impact. For this lesson, attention was given to the Impact portion. The kind of impact The Redemption Movement tries to make in their community is: "Moving people out of a self-centered lifestyle and into a new self-sacrificial life in order to impact a broken world with the Gospel."

The Gospel declares that, when a person believes and follows Jesus, they are made new and called to live like Jesus did. There is a verse in Matthew that clearly explains Jesus' motivation,  "Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave--just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (Mt. 20:26-28)." Just like Jesus made a big impact on the world by being a servant, so too are Christians called to make a great impact on their community through service.

How then Are Christians to Serve?

What does this service look like? Christian service is sacrificial, as seen ultimately with Jesus giving his life on the cross. Even day-to-day Christian service is supposed to be sacrificial and practical, as seen in John 13 when Jesus (who is exalted over all creation) humbled himself by stripping down to his undergarments and washing the feet of his disciples. Jesus explained this act of service, "I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you (Jn. 13:14-15)."

The thing about feet washing in the first century, is that people wore sandals on dirty roads filled with animal feces. It's fair to assume that the disciples' feet were dirty, sweaty, smelly, and in need of a good wash. At the Redemption Movement, we want to impact the world for God by serving our community, and nobody amongst us had stinky feet; but, if our city had feet, then the stairwells of the Oneonta downtown parking garage would be the modern equivalent of a well-traveled foot from first century Palestine.

Radical Service Project #1: Cleaning the Parking Garage

With the 3 day weekend ahead, this pile of sawdust and urine would have sat for 3 days before a city employee could take care of it.

Motivated by Jesus' example, we wanted to serve Oneonta in a practical and humble way. So we ended our church gathering early, loaded up some cleaning supplies in the ministry machine, and headed downtown on a Friday night to deodorize the stairwells. It was the Friday before a busy Labor Day weekend, and the stairwells were in dire need of a good scrubbing just as they were when we cleaned them last July as part of a Sunday Act of Kindness.

Locals using the stairwells understand the need to hold your breath as you pass through them, primarily because some individuals often confuse stairwells for urinals. While much of the town was partying only a block away, a team of five motivated Christians quietly pulled up and scrubbed the stairwells with bleach and lavender-fragranced cleaner. Within an hour, the stairwells smelt pleasant, which means the visiting Labor Day tourist would be spared a smelly surprise.

Radical Service Project #2: Offering Free Rides

By the time the cleaning team was done it was late, around 10pm, but the night of service was not over. Everybody went back to church, only to clean up for a second service project. You see, this Friday was the first Friday night the college students were back, which means the downtown, with it's ten or so bars, was the hot spot for well over a thousand people. As part of Welcome Week 2013, The Redemption Movement committed to be right in the middle of the party zone to help keep students safe and show them God's love by offering free rides.

It's an act of kindness we have done a few times before; in fact, we did it as recently as the previous night. Only tonight was different because we were teaming up with a student Christian group from SUNY Oneonta called BASIC (Brothers and Sisters In Christ). This is the second time The Redemption Movement and BASIC teamed up for Welcome Week as both groups helped move students into their dorms on the previous Sunday.

For this act of kindness, BASIC brought their 16 passenger van and we parked it directly in front of one of the most popular bars on Main Street, The Red Jug Pub--which coincidentally, uses the image of the devil as its logo. As students took us up on our offer for free rides, we got to explain that we were doing this as an act of kindness to show God's love and answer their questions about faith. It was also a great time of sharing God's grace and meeting new people as we stood outside the van with a sign that said "FREE RIDES."

One student from BASIC was able to relate to several of the students we gave rides to because she already knew them from class, and she would explain to them her passion for the Bible during the ride home. Several students tried to offer money for tips, and they where amazed when we told them, "Keep your money, this is free because God's love is freely given."

The most dramatic impact we made that night was with a young man who was so intoxicated that he could barely walk and talk. We convinced him to get into the car (the van broke down and we had to swap vehicles), and after driving a few blocks, it became obvious that he didn't know where he was or how to get home. After incoherently giving us his address he passed out. We called the Oneonta city police to assist us in getting him home, and they were able to wake him up and determine where he lived. The police then helped us find his apartment and we walked him to his door. The young man got home safe and he was left with information about our church and God's love for him.

Welcome Week 2013 was a success. We were too exhausted to go out for a third night of designated driving as planned, but all-in-all, we feel like we made quite the impact by completing 5/6 service projects in welcoming back the students and serving the community.

You are welcome to make an impact for God with us and participate in an act of kindness every Sunday at The Redemption Movement. See Friday's Facebook post for the upcoming AoK project. You are also welcome to come on Fridays and hear about the previous Sunday's AoK, along with teachings from the Bible geared towards anybody seeking truth, starting at 6pm at 148 River St., Oneonta, NY. Contact us if you want to know more, and if you do visit our church, be sure not to wear nice clothes because you never know what radical service project we might end up doing!