By Rick Burnette

Let me tell you about my church.  
 
My church meets every Friday from noon until 6:30 p.m. My church has boxes and bins full of food, some tables and a few folding chairs, but no pews. My church is led by a Guatemalan-born preacher, Pastor Miguel. My church starts its weekly time of service with announcements, introductions and prayer.  
 
My church has several regulars and approximately 400 visitors each week. My church doesn’t usually offer communion in the form of bread and wine. Instead, we provide the 400 guests with two or three bags of groceries, including rice and beans and canned goods along with fresh, locally grown produce and donated bread. 
 
At my church, various tongues are spoken, including Kreyol, Spanish, English and Mayan dialects. Visitors often come in worn-out work shoes and torn clothing covered with the green stain of tomato vines. Extremely hungry, tired, traumatized and broken people aren’t expected to be cheerful. 

Misión Peniel isn’t officially a church. At least not yet. Although Misión Peniel is a farmworker ministry, it serves as church to many. We are a faith community that gathers regularly to glorify God through interaction with Immokalee’s marginalized.   
 
After Ellen and I moved back to the states in 2013, having represented CBF Global Missions and another international nonprofit in Southeast Asian farming communities for over 19 years, I wasn’t thriving in my new role at the nonprofit’s headquarters in Florida. One Sunday at the church we were attending we viewed an interview of Sojourners’ Jim Wallis. I can’t recall his exact words, but Wallis stressed the essential spiritual practice of being in the presence of the poor. It then hit me why I was so miserable.  
 
After a couple of years back in the U.S., despite working with an organization doing effective work and being very involved in a church, I was still in spiritual withdrawal from my previous direct involvement with farmers living on the edge.  
 
The church we attended was a partner of Misión Peniel, a farmworker ministry of the Peace River Presbytery – PC(USA) – in the town of Immokalee, Florida. About 40 miles from our home, Immokalee is where most of America’s wintertime tomatoes are grown on very large farms and harvested by migrant farmworkers. Ironically, the community is a food desert. 
 
After volunteering at Misión Peniel, Ellen and I began to consider engaging in full-time ministry to help address Immokalee’s food insecurity. This eventually led to the establishment of Cultivate Abundance.  
 
In partnership with Misión Peniel, we grow, collect and share nutritious food of cultural preference for the Haitian, Guatemalan and Mexican residents of Immokalee. Our nonprofit became a CBF Global Missions Engagement Partner after I was re-appointed as Global Missions field personnel in 2018.  
 
Our work was just hitting stride when Covid-19 emerged. With no volunteers around, the Cultivate Abundance team began to assist Misión Peniel’s staff to share food with hundreds of people every Friday afternoon. Weekly efforts to pack bags of food to share with hundreds of clients became our routine.  
 
Despite social distancing, we were able to get to know the regular clients, including some who struggle with addictions, mental health challenges and other pain. Sadly, one of the pandemic casualties was our involvement with the church that introduced us to Misión Peniel.  

For a while it was weird not to attend services. But as the pandemic abated, we began to engage CBF churches in Florida and beyond on Sundays, sometimes visiting another local congregation. It finally dawned on us that regardless of where we are on Sunday mornings, we are still part of the Church. Through Misión Peniel, and in partnership with CBF, we are currently engaging in a less traditional version of church as we serve in Immokalee.  
 
We can attest to the words of Sister Helen Prejean, “And it is there, in the faces of poor and struggling people, that I have found the most direct road to God.” Afterall, Peniel means “the face of God.” 
 
In the pandemic’s aftermath, with ongoing domestic political discord and societal transformation, I think we’re all concerned about the shifting ecclesiastical landscape. I’m by no means a theologian, but I wonder if Misión Peniel represents one of many alternative or non-traditional manifestations of church.  
 
I understand should anyone assert, “Misión Peniel is not a church. It’s a ministry established by churches, operating off the support of churches.” But what if the essence of church isn’t so dualistic? Perhaps the reality of church is more liminal than conventionally thought.  
 
Not to limit discussion to nonprofits or ministries such as Misión Peniel, let’s consider the frequent demise of declining congregations in transitional communities. Might a broader view of church breathe new life and purpose into struggling congregations, especially if they embrace the presence of the poor? 
 
Imagine churches, with dwindling enrollments and budget, taking inventory of locally felt needs in conversation with neighbors and other community stakeholders. With such feedback, what if transitioning churches pivot towards partnerships addressing local needs while projecting a witness for Christ, thereby eliminating the distance between churches and the mission field?  

 
Conversely, might faith-based nonprofits better accommodate local needs for worship and pastoral care?  
 
Thank God for healthy, traditional congregations with the means to support the CBF Offering for Global Missions and community-based ministries. Many are well positioned to serve as allies for transitioning sister congregations or nonprofits exploring local ministry needs in the form of novel, hybrid churches.  
 
Rev. Chris Harbin, A United Methodist pastor in Wingate, N.C., recently wrote, “Moving forward, we need a return to community, but not a community focused on special buildings and structures dedicated to a focus on heaven in the by and by. I imagine the church will need to regain its focus and relevance though directing our attention to the concerns of living the way of Jesus in daily life while not neglecting eternity and our reliance upon God (My Church Thanksgiving by Rev. Christopher B. Harbin, Nov. 23, 2023).” 
 
Hybrid places of worship and community service aren’t new to the modern church. The Salvation Army has been at it for a long time. In the CBF world, for starters, I could name Grace and Main’s worshiping and serving presence among the unhoused of Danville, Va. and the “farm with a church” ministry associated with Englewood Baptist on the outskirts of Kansas City.  
 
In solidarity with the poor, I’m sure that more hybrid churches will be recognized from across the CBF landscape, with more to emerge.  
 
Rick Burnette serves as Cooperative Baptist Fellowship field personnel in South Florida, where his wife, Ellen, is Executive Director of Cultivate Abundance, a ministry they co-founded in 2017. Click here to learn more about their work.