Midland Baptist is a Church that Responds to Poverty

Midland Baptist Church demonstrates that it is possible for a small, local community to tackle poverty on a global scale.  Midland connects community members, farmers, and rural & and urban churches with the Canadian Foodgrains Bank.  Canadian Foodgrains Bank is an ecumenical ministry that works to end global hunger.  

The congregation of Midland Baptist Church and Canadian Foodgrains Bank were connected through Midland Baptist’s pastor, Alden Crain, and his past work in Kenya with Canadian Baptist Ministries.  The combination of Canadian Foodgrains Bank and Midland Baptist, in the farming community of Norton, was a natural fit.  Midland Baptist’s approach to poverty ministries is to address poverty globally, while educating people about poverty locally.  This approach has raised about $35,000 for Canadian Foodgrains Bank in the last year.  

 

There are broad programs that form connections.  Some programs see farmers donating part of their crops. The Orchard Project harvests apples to make cider, apple butter, and other products to sell at farmers markets.  Similarly, a corn farmer donates the proceeds of three acres of crops.  It is hoped that this program will expand by this farmer advocating other farmers to make similar donations.  Another program started when a dairy farmer asked how he could use his farm to help feed hungry people.  The answer came through selling male calves born on the dairy farm and donating the proceeds from the sales.  

 

The church also wanted to involve the community as a whole.  Their program Mad at Poverty, does that by serving coffee, fresh to order at the church’s coffee drive-thru.  The idea quickly took off in the church and in the community.  The church serves the fair-trade Just Us coffee brand.  Although it charges $1.25 per cup, the average customer pays about $3.00.  This type of response from the community helped Mad at Poverty raise about $6000 for the Canadian Foodgrains Bank.  It also engaged the church’s community in issues surrounding poverty. 

 

Midland Baptist Church is congregation of 70 people.  For more information about the programs at Midland Baptist Church or Canadian Foodgrains Bank, please contact Alden Crain, Midland Baptist Church’s pastor and The Canadian Foodgrains Bank Volunteer Co-ordinator for New Brunswick, at midbc@nb.aibn.com.

 

This post was originally part of a newsletter that I co-authored about Saint John area churches and Christian non-profits with poverty reduction services. Next week will be the last post from the articles that I wrote for this project. If you know of other churches and Christian NGOs in the Saint John area, let me know. I'd love to get to know them.