In Pennsylvania and New York, Bridgewater Church and Northbridge Church partnered to hold Be the Church Sunday.
Bridgewater Church has five campuses—in Hancock, New York; and in Hallstead, Dimock, Montrose, and Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania. Northbridge Church, which was previously part of Bridgewater Church, has campuses in Conklin and Vestal, New York.
Be the Church Sunday, now in its ninth year, “is the one Sunday each year when, instead of singing and listening to a sermon, the church gathers and then goes out to serve the community in the name of Jesus,” says Bob Kadlecik, pastor of Bridgewater’s Montrose campus.
Almost 1,200 adults, youth, and kids—wearing “Be the Church” shirts—spread across the churches’ communities to complete dozens of projects, including building a wheelchair ramp, painting women’s fingernails at nursing homes, landscaping and painting an elementary school, writing notes of encouragement to the sick, and removing dead trees from an elderly woman’s yard.
“It’s a living reminder of Jesus’ words in Matthew 28:20: ‘Teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you,’” Bob says. “Our mission is not only to teach what Jesus said, but also to live it out in obedience.”
After two to four hours of serving, everyone regrouped for lunch and to share stories celebrating what God had done.
“Every year someone says, ‘We should do this every week!’ And the response is always ‘You can! You can serve others every day!’” Bob says.
“Some even begin attending church after experiencing Be the Church. One man said, ‘This is the kind of church I want to be a part of—a church that doesn’t just talk about Jesus, but actually follows Him!’”
