The Herald-Zeitung

Gruene United Methodist Church will have a “be the church” day today, sending off its approximately 250-member congregation to perform service projects throughout the community.

Over the past few years “be the church” has gained momentum as a movement among different churches across the country.

The idea is to perform missionary-like projects in a community for a day using Sundays not just for worship but for action.

Pastor Karen Horan of Gruene UMC says she first heard of the program from the Schertz United Methodist Church. Pastor Karen, as she’s known by her congregation, said congregants will meet at their usual gathering place — at Canyon High School’s cafeteria.

“We are going to gather and have a little bit of church for 15 or 20 minutes,” she said. “But the point is to be the church.”

Gruene UMC was “planted” — organized as a new branch — by New Braunfels UMC nearly three years ago and is currently constructing its own building, which is set to be completed in the fall

Pastor Karen took suggestions as to what kind of work to do.

“We also wanted to make sure everyone could participate, both children and the elderly, so one of the projects is to bake and deliver cookies,” she said. “We have a crew heading out to St. Jude’s (Ranch for Children),” she said.

But they’re not just doing typical projects.

“We’re going to a laundromat and making it free,” she said, meaning they’ll be feeding the machines quarters all day so customers don’t have to. Care packages will also be taken over to Hope Hospice.

In all, the congregation will perform around 14 projects, all of which Pastor Karen hopes will instill a strong sense of missionary work into her congregation before they move into their new building.

“Really for us it was about picking the right time,” to have a “be the church” day, she said. “We know that once we move into that new building congregations can become internally focused,” she said.

The new church building is a 22,000-square-foot building on the corner of Common Street and Old Farm-to-Market 309.

Pastor Karen wants to make sure her congregation is “trusting God and being the hands and feet of God in the world before moving into the new building.”

Gruene UMC has done service projects from the very start, Pastor Karen said.

“Often times when people get the missionary drive they want to go right to Africa,” she said.

While she does want to go to Africa someday herself for missionary work, Pastor Karen said she hopes little steps like this will remind her congregation that even though they may contain the spirit to serve throughout the world, there are people nearby that need help too.

“We hope that this will be contagious,” she said.

Eric J. Weilbacher can be reached at (830) 625-9144 ext. 226 or by e-mail at eweilbacher(at)herald-zeitung.com