Block party caps church's six weeks of kind acts

By Gail Hollenbeck, Times Correspondent
In print: Saturday, March 29, 2008

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WEEKI WACHEE — Perhaps you've noticed them handing out bottled water in the park. Or maybe when you got to the register at a fast food restaurant, you found that they had paid your bill. A card they left behind said: This is our simple way of saying that God loves you. Let us know if we can be of more assistance.

Those are some of the random acts of kindness that members of Christian Church in the Wildwood have been performing for the past six weeks as part of its Outflow Bible study program.

"This study has really made me go back and look at the Scripture where Jesus tells us to be light and salt," said senior Pastor Dave Pardue. "The trouble is the salt's got to get out of the salt shaker. So we're learning how, as a church, to really get outside ourselves."

To extend that kindness to the entire community, the church is canceling its regular church services Sunday morning to host a block party.

"We're expecting thousands of people," Pardue said. "We hope this will be an annual thing."

"We want to show God's love in a practical way to our community," said associate pastor Joe Caputo, who has been helping to coordinate the event. "Most churches try to bring people in. We just want to let people know we care about them. Come as you want and do as you want. It's all free."

The event will feature a Kid's Zone with inflatable games, clowns and face painting. For older youth, there will be a rock-climbing wall and sports area.

Several community organizations will give demonstrations and distribute information including the Dawn Center, Teen Challenge, Upward Bound, Jericho Road, Mary's House, Celebrate Recovery, Divorce Care, Humane Society and the blood mobile. Chick-fil-A will visit with their "cow" to give away free coupons. Starbucks will give away coffee. Living Water will give away bottles of water. Free food will be available, and family photos will be taken and printed on the spot.

Spring Hill Fire Rescue will present Smoke House demonstrations five times throughout the day beginning at 10:15 a.m. Withlacoochee River Electric Cooperative will have four high-voltage demonstrations beginning at 10:30 a.m.

Live music will be played throughout the day by two contemporary Christian bands and in the afternoon, professional singers will perform tunes from the '50s and '60s.

Caputo said the block party culminates a five-week church study.

"One thing we talked about is if Christian Church in the Wildwood just disappeared, would anybody notice?" he said. "Would anybody in our community care that we were gone? It was really a sobering thought. We thought we needed to do something about that — to start to reach out and touch people's lives just because we care and because God loves them. We want to love them the same way."

According to Caputo, the church decided to begin doing random acts of kindness with no agenda. He has been collecting stories from people involved in the program, like the one sent to him by a man who said he felt led to rake an elderly woman's lawn, even though he was tired after a long day of work.

"After a total of seven hours (over two days) with a sore and aching body, I finished," the man wrote. "While I was doing this, I told God it was for his glory, because I sure didn't want to be here doing this. But the peace and the joy I had was worth every minute of it."

Others told of pumping gas for the elderly, taking time to talk to store clerks, buying ice cream for a group of kids, washing cars for free or getting involved in community organizations like Love Your Neighbor.

Although the block party marks the end of the study, Caputo hopes it is just the beginning of a new lifestyle for church members.

"This is really what Jesus had in mind when he came to earth," he said.

Pardue agrees.

"It's a transitional time as a church for us, but we think it's where we need to go," the senior pastor said. "Doing good is something that everybody recognizes. I think it's a commodity that our culture still appreciates. They just don't know that it's grounded in Christ."