My visit to a food bank

On January 19^th, I visited the food pantry run by CrossPoint United Methodist church, which assists around 13 local families, around 70 people, both inside and outside of their church. The food pantry is fully sponsored by the donations of the congregation, through a combination of donated nonperishable food items and a modest budget to buy discounted food in bulk as part of the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank Member Agency. The food pantry works on self declaration of need, as it serves to supplemental support for anyone who claims to have a need. Which is in turn is picked out by the person in need through the assistance of one of the volunteers according to a guidelines sheet based upon family size.

I talked with Lora and Wendy, the two women from CrossPoint that oversee the food pantry outreach, both of whom were motivated through the Prophetic Scripture books but without directly realizing it. Wendy was motivated by what she called Jesus’ first sermon in Luke 4:14-21 which was centered around justice for the poor, believing that if is important to Jesus than its important to me. Lora was motivated by a Hymn in the Methodist Hymnal adapted from Micah 6:6-8, with command to do justice and love mercy standing out to her the most. Both Lora and Wendy were so caught up in seeking to help others that they struggled with answering my question of how God was blessing them through their work with the food pantry. Wendy told me about how her work with the food pantry was helping her to learn how we are all equal before God, which stands out to her as she connects with others and extends the love of Jesus to them. Lora felt most blessed by being able to take the time to listen to the stories of the people the food pantry reaches out to. An experience which she finds humbling as she learns both who they are and what gratitude is.

Overall I was very impressed with the CrossPoint food pantry, especially how it was considered just another ministry of a single parish church and not part of the wider denomination. I think the sense of local church ownership of the food pantry is a major strength of its ministry because it allows the congregation to actively minister to the real needs of the local poor in their neighborhoods. Another advantage of this hands on congregation approach, is that people tend to be more generous and motivated with their giving when they see exactly where it is going, and know that others are depending upon them. This direct social interaction with the needy causes the church to build outreach relationships with local churches in a way that presents them with a much fuller picture of the Gospel than a street preacher could ever give them. As was clearly the case when during my visit, one of the regular customers, ask one of the workers what time the church meet on Sundays. As to disadvantages, its really hard to criticize CrossPoint as I feel that a lot more churches need to be doing exactly what they are doing. But if I must be critical, I feel that their ministry might be a little more effective if they also had men visibly involved instead of just women, in order to give a more complete picture of the church.