15 years in the making article in the newspaper

Thanks Loretta for the great article.
MISSION ABILENE: CHURCH CELEBRATING 15 YEARS OF EXISTENCE

By Loretta Fulton
Published Thursday, April 5, 2012
"Come as you are leave different."

That's more than a slogan painted on the side of Mission Abilene.

"That's our banner prayer," said Chad Mitchell, lead pastor.Mission Abilene, which originated in 1997 as The Mission, will celebrate its 15th anniversary at 10:45 a.m. Sunday.

The church held its first organized service on Easter Sunday, March 30, 1997, in a space created in a warehouse belonging to Love and Care Ministries. Since then, the church has grown to the point that it relocated to the present site at 3001 N. 3rd St., just a few blocks from Love and Care Ministries.

A large room with seating for 400, plus a full size band, is filled every Sunday morning, Mitchell said. Although Love and Care Ministries and Mission Abilene are separate entities, they still share a common ministry to the poor and homeless of Abilene.

"They're the outreach," Mitchell said of Love and Care, "and we're the church."

The founder and director of Love and Care Ministries, Mark Hewitt, was pastor of The Mission until Mitchell was hired in 2003.

Easter Sunday service at Mission Abilene is likely to be a little different from what most folks are used to. The church may have one of the most diverse congregations in Abilene, with various ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds represented.

Someone who walks in off the street might be offered use of one of the showers available and a set of clean clothes before church starts.

"Some will come in suits and ties, and you'll see some with backpacks on their backs," Mitchell said.

The church, just like its parent Love and Care Ministries, stresses service to the city's neediest residents. For that reason, it is attractive to college students and faculty, as well as to the clients served by the church.

Mitchell, 32, holds bachelor's and master's degrees from Hardin-Simmons University, and he is typical of other students who are drawn to the church and its service ministries. A 1997 graduate of Abilene High School, Mitchell heard Hewitt speak when he was a student.

He listened to Hewitt's own story about how he was called to start Love and Care Ministries and how God had helped him in his personal journey.

"I felt compelled to come and help," Mitchell said.

But it took another year for him to actually make the commitment. He happened to stop by the tent revival that Love and Care Ministries sponsors each year and saw Hewitt there.

"The next thing I knew," Mitchell said, "I was grabbing sleeping bags and things for the revival."

He began attending the church regularly and became a staff member. His journey is typical of just about everyone who starts attending Mission Abilene. If you attend the church, you serve, Mitchell said. That service often results in remarkable transformations.

"We empower the least likely," Mitchell said, "the unlikely."

Today, Mission Abilene is much more than a church that draws 400 people on Sunday morning. During the week, its rooms are filled with volunteers from various organizations and agencies such as the International Rescue Committee and Child Protective Services.

Addiction recovery meetings and sessions for abused women are scheduled throughout the week. On Wednesday evenings, young adults under the leadership of Heath Henderson go to three nearby apartment complexes to hold outdoor services for the children who live there.

Other groups routinely conduct a "suds ministry" by handing out bottles of detergent to people in laundromats. Still others sometimes take loaves of bread or other gifts and leave then on the doorsteps at neighborhood homes.

"We just do various things to say we're here," Mitchell said. "We want to be a lighthouse in the community."

That light not only shines on the neighborhood, it also draws people from all over town and all walks of life. Henderson, pastor to young adults, holds both bachelor's and master's degrees from Hardin-Simmons University. He was used to a traditional church service when he first attended Mission Abilene.

"It was probably the most different church I had been to," he said. "I consider it to be kind of a cultural melting pot."

Henderson had two close calls with death in his younger years, one from an illness while in high school and the other from a car wreck. He was a passenger in a car driven by a friend who was drunk, Henderson said.

"I walked away and he didn't," Henderson said.

It's a story he now uses in his job as a prevention specialist with the Abilene Regional Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse. The wreck happened in July 2001, the summer before Henderson entered HSU. It also was two months before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Those two events together were devastating to Henderson.

"I kind of gave up hope," he said, and remained in that state until age 25. That's when he discovered Mission Abilene.

"I found hope again," he said.

That's a sentiment shared by many Abilenians who have passed through the doors of Mission Abilene the past 15 years. Because the church serves the poor and homeless, its resources are scarce. Members who can give more, do, but offerings are usually a few coins fished from pockets.Knowing that, member Brian Holamon was thrilled when a special offering for a project he started netted $1,400 in pocket change. He wasn't shocked, just thrilled. He knows that the church members are as generous as their means allow.

Holamon, who owns God's Care Lawnscapes, has been a member of the church almost from the beginning. In 2002, Holamon took a trip to Brazil with his father and had a revelation. He fell in love with the country and has returned every year since.

He connected with a missionary there, with the intention of sharing his love of Christ with people he met. But he eventually realized just telling people about Jesus wasn't enough.

"God was teaching me the value of relationships," Holamon said.

He learned that villagers needed access to clean drinking water and began a project that he now calls Living Water Brazil. Last September, Holamon installed two water purification systems in the city of Primeira Cruz.

In February he returned and installed two more. The cost of each system, including customs fees, shipping, and installation is about $5,500, which comes from donations.

Holamon said he was drawn to Mission Abilene because it emphasizes service work at home and in distant places like Brazil.

"It was a church that actually did something," he said.

As it continues to grow, Mission Abilene will do even more, its pastor, Mitchell, said. The church already is cramped in the building it moved into eight years ago. Mitchell won't predict the future of the church, but he has no doubt it has a great future in store.

"There's no telling what can happen," he said.