You might not think free hot dogs are a good way to meet your neighbors, but they worked fine for us at West Park Christian Church on Indianapolis’s Near Westside.
Our church is in the Hawthorne neighborhood, just steps off old US 40 and the National Road. Its houses were built in the first couple decades of the last century. Our building is on Addison Street, but our parking lot is on the lot behind us and it empties out onto Holmes Street. As cars and pedestrians passed, we called them in. Many stopped.
Rob, the husband of our youth pastor, manned the grill. Here he is talking to our lead pastor’s wife, Sue.
On the left is Wanda, who brought one of her friends. At right is one of our neighbors who stopped by with her children.
Jay brought his DJ gear and provided the soundtrack.
He has quite a nice little setup.
He and Phil (right) are our sound engineers on Sunday mornings.
Our little church has its challenges. We’re small in number and often lack enough people to carry out our plans. Sometimes we don’t collect a large enough offering to cover expenses. Heck, sometimes we show up on Sunday morning to find we’ve run out of communion supplies. Frankly, we count our blessings every time our worship service happens without any glitches.
But we are good at just being easy-to-approach people in our community. People find quickly that we are the most non-threatening, easiest to talk to Christians they’ve ever met. The hot dogs were just our clever ruse to let our neighbors find that out.
Nikon FA, 50mm f/1.8 Nikon Series E, Agfa Vista 200
