By Jennifer Colosimo
Five years ago, Christy McMillin-Goodwin joined the staff at First Baptist Church of Front Royal, Va., as their new senior pastor. She came from a mission position at her previous church, which made her new home the perfect fit as FBC Front Royal was entering a mission-minded era. After more than 30 years with their previous pastor, they wanted to come together and decide what the future would mean for them. Overwhelmingly, they determined to be more involved with the community and more connected to missions.
McMillin-Goodwin got right to work. With her CBF connections, she started scheduling field personnel to visit the church and speak about the work they were doing. Most of those individuals weren’t based far away, but it helped educate the congregation not only on what they were doing, but also what was happening globally. The congregation was moved; and while they weren’t in a season of life where they could shoot hoops with teens in need or put roofs on houses, they were ready to use their experience and resources to do whatever they could.
Through this initiative, FBC Front Royal met Anna and Lacount Anderson and decided they wanted to do more than learn about their mission—they wanted to help. They signed an Encourager Church Covenant and hit the ground running. They supported them financially through fundraisers like a chili cook-off and a yard sale, and by sending notes and gifts of encouragement.
“It was the perfect opportunity for our church to explore how we could further connect with field personnel that we have been praying for and learning about,” McMillin-Goodwin said. “Anna and Lacount, who live in a rural area, do a lot of food ministry, which is a huge part of our church’s ministry. That made it make good sense to partner with them and we hope to be able to go visit them one day.
“We’re an older, smaller congregation,” McMillin-Goodwin said. “So, we often have to ask what can we take on that would make a difference. The Encourager Church signing day was such a positive day for us. There was a lot of energy in the room and we were excited about the possibilities for missions moving forward.”
Perhaps the biggest ministry at the church is the Dinner Together program. This program hosts a hot, to-go meal pick-up service for the community every Monday through Thursday inviting unhoused, homeless and low-income men and women to swing by and take dinner with them. It originally happened across three different churches on different nights, serving about 20 people. Dinner Together is now centrally located at FBC Front Royal and serves about 80 meals every night. It now involves 14 partners and counting, including area churches, local restaurants and businesses willing to help provide food, pack meals and serve.
Recently, the Blue Ridge Food Bank awarded FBC Front Royal with a capacity grant that they used to install a large outdoor freezer that will amp up efficiency and allow them to accept more perishable foods to use later and to prepare and freeze individual meals to meet fluctuating needs.
“This program is truly a community effort,” said McMillin-Goodwin, who is one of five local female pastors representing the five major churches in town. “We’ve got four churches now who each take a night, we’ve hired a coordinator to run it and sometimes restaurants will send us leftovers. We also get food salvage from places like Walmart, and we’re always trying to build more relationships with community partners so we can build up what we have and be able to serve more.
“I’m so proud that, with our partners, we’ve created one place where people in need can come and get a hot meal, feel loved and valued,” she added. “Being able to form relationships with the people that we serve, and then witnessing the gratitude they express validates this program for us.”
McMillin-Goodwin’s church wants her to be a part of what’s going on in the community. They see her work as an extension of all of them and a way to be the presence of Christ amongst their neighbors. As a result, she participates in the Rotary Club, Seniors First, the Salvation Army, the Warren County/Front Royal Ministerial Association and the Virginia Baptist Women in Ministry. She also serves as Vice-Moderator for CBFVA.
As a church, they’ve partnered with the local Salvation Army Boys & Girls Club chapter to support their program at E. Wilson Morrison Elementary School, which is right across the street and sees the highest rate of poverty amongst students in the county. At that same school, they serve children through another program called Laces for Faces, where they provide $50 gift cards to the local shoe store for kids who don’t have appropriate shoes for school. They also pack food backpacks for students to have enough to eat over the weekend, a program that served 643 kids last year.
They are connected to a local domestic violence shelter and spend time packing boxes of home essentials for women and children who are starting over. They help the Front Royal Rotary Club pack Christmas food baskets every December.
FBC Front Royal houses a daycare in their building and shares its facilities with a local Spanish-speaking church to be “good stewards of what they’ve been given.”
“I’ve witnessed an evolution within our congregation in just the few years that I’ve been a part of it,” McMillin-Goodwin said. “A church that was hesitant about some things at first, to one that’s happy to share what they’ve been given with their neighbors. That change has opened so many doors for them to get out into the community and help. I am so proud of what they’ve been willing to do.”
Their actions have begun the story of how several congregations together can do more than simply help people. They can make a difference in the place where they live.