Operation Inasmuch

The Moravian - October 2005

At the New Fellowship Hall at Greensboro’s First Moravian Church (North Carolina) on a Saturday morning last April, children dropped soap, shampoo, and deodorant into plastic bags, which would be taken later to the Salvation Army and used by the homeless.

Nearby, a number of church members made baby blankets for a crisis maternity home and walker bags for nursing home patients. Some divided, ironed, and put donated clothing for the Salvation Army on hangers, while others packed lunches for other volunteers.

Across town, teams of First Moravian members fanned out to repair homes for clients of Housing Greensboro, a home repair arm of Habitat for Humanity; to clean yards for homebound hospice patients and to hold a Backyard Bible School at a transitional homeless shelter. Television news crews looked on as members of First Moravian’s youth group, swarmed over an elderly man’s home, repairing a sewer line, painting a bedroom, and building a doghouse.

The one-day mission blitz, called “Operation Inasmuch,” was a first for First Moravian — but it won’t be the last. Planning is well underway for the second Operation Inasmuch, which is scheduled for mid-October. First Moravian will be joined by its neighbors, Lindley Park Baptist Church and the Power for Living Tabernacle Church — and possibly others – to spend a Saturday reaching out to the Greensboro community.

Operation Inasmuch <www.operationinasmuch.com> was founded by the Rev. David Crocker and the congregation at Snyder Memorial Baptist Church in Fayetteville, North Carolina. It draws as its inspiration Matthew 25:40, in which Jesus Christ tells his followers: “Inasmuch as you have done to the least of these, you have done to me.”

This year, Operation Inasmuch in Fayetteville celebrated its tenth anniversary of putting into action what the Rev. Crocker was fond of calling “God’s open-book test.” Operation Inasmuch has spread from its Baptist roots to include other congregations including Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Catholics — and now Moravians — in more than 500 churches in the United States and Great Britain.

First Moravian’s first Operation Inasmuch came about because of an earlier visioning process. Facilitated by Judy Knopf, who was director of Gemeinschaft and Church Renewal in the Southern Province, the visioning sessions involved several congregational meetings at which priorities were spelled out. One was to find ways to reach out into the surrounding community, a theme echoed by the church’s new mission statement: “United in Christ. Reaching out in love. Changing lives.”

First Moravian member Susie Barnes pondered that one for a minute.

“What our church needs,” she said, “is an Inasmuch.”

Susie and her husband Marc had moved from Fayetteville to Greensboro in early 2001. They had been members of Snyder Memorial Baptist — and had done roof repairs as a part of Operation Inasmuch projects from its beginnings in 1995.

The Rev. David Fischler, pastor of First Moravian in Greensboro, welcomed the idea.

“Operation Inasmuch is one of the best things to come out of our visioning process,” he said. “As we’ve begun to see all of Greensboro as our mission field, the one-day mission blitz has given us a concrete way of being in ministry that can involve every member of the congregation. If you can hammer nails or paint, if you can trim bushes or rake leaves, if you can sew or put together hygiene kits, or inventory donated clothes for the Salvation Army, you can take part.”

Susie Barnes bought a book from the Operation Inasmuch website that shows churches how to carry out an Operation Inasmuch mission blitz. The book’s cost, $35, represented the only expense to First Moravian from the Operation Inasmuch organization.

“Many churches would like to do a day of missions,” says Barnes. “But the challenge is that they don’t know how to set it up and run it, and because of that, they are sometimes fearful of getting involved. Snyder Baptist has had 10 years of experience and they have put this experience together in a step-by-step guide.”

Barnes and several other members gathered into a planning team to come up with mission projects that fall under the Operation Inasmuch guidelines: “Projects chosen for Operation Inasmuch have to be completed in one day and there must be church members with the knowledge and talent available to do them.”

Some of the project ideas were suggestions out of the Operation Inasmuch book. Others came from First Moravian members — and one had a decidedly Moravian theme.

The children who were going to put together the hygiene kits raised their own money to pay for it by taking up a “Joyful Noise” collection — pocket change thrown into decorated coffee cans during Sunday services. That idea was brought to First Moravian from a Moravian church in Pennsylvania, which a First Moravian member had visited.

And the result? The people of First Moravian, true to the church’s mission statement, changed the lives of 451 people that day. Here’s how:

• The elementary school kids raised $582 and assembled 250 hygiene kits.
• Five kids were served at the Backyard Bible Club at the Salvation Army’s Center of Hope, its transitional housing facility.
• Seventeen baby blankets and eight walker bags were put together.
• Yard work was completed at three sites, touching the lives of 11 people.
• Members painted and repaired houses at three sites and helped build a doghouse, which meant we were a blessing to 11 people and one dog, named Sweetness.
• Three kids were watched in the church’s nursery to free up their parents to work.
• Enough clothes were donated to the Salvation Army to make a pile three feet high on the grand piano in the New Fellowship Hall.
• The members raised money to buy and distribute 90 pocket New Testaments.

That makes 392 lives that were touched that day. Add the volunteers to that number and that brings the total to 451.

“I thought that this was one of those things where you get a whole lot more out of it than you put in it,” said longtime church member Randy White. “I was with the kids and I had the sense they had the same feeling. They felt like they were doing something good.”

Russ Walker, another member, was part of a team that worked on an elderly man’s house.

“These are people who really appreciate what you have done for them, from the heart,” he said. “It really makes us want to do it again.”

The Rev. Fischler said the effort makes the most of the individual talents that church members have.

“Operation Inasmuch is outreach for the entire congregation,” he said. “You don’t have to be an evangelist to spread the love of Christ, just a willing servant he can use.”

For more information about Operation Inasmuch, visit their website at <www.operationinasmuch.com> or contact First Moravian Church in Greensboro, North Carolina, by calling 336.272.2196.

Marc Barnes is a freelance writer in Greensboro, North Carolina, and is the chairman of the First Moravian Board of Trustees. He enjoys volunteering, especially when it involves recapturing his youth as an adult volunteer for his 12-year-old son’s Boy Scout troop.