Pastors with a love for barbecue may want to follow the example of a Church in Navasota, Texas. Barbecue Baptist Church aims to bring a warm meal, a little levity and a reminder that people care to its community and beyond.
The church borrowed a catering trailer from a member and made an announcement on the local news in April: “Anybody who invites us to come, we will come to your house, and we will do a short worship service and give you a free barbecue meal,” Pastor Chad McMillan said.
In the first five weeks, Barbecue Baptist Church traveled around the county, serving about four meals a day, four days a week, he said. Sometimes it would find a group of 20 people. Sometimes it would find a lonely elderly woman sitting on her porch, longing for human interaction.
Workers with Barbecue Baptist Church, an outreach program of First Baptist Church of Navasota, Texas, prepare food during a road trip stop in Nashville in June 2020. Photo courtesy of Barbecue Baptist Church
Last month, the outreach decided to take the show on the road from Navasota to Nashville, visiting first responders and medical professionals in six different states across the South in seven days. On that trip alone, McMillan said, its team smoked 800 to 1,000 pounds of pork using post oak wood, a central Texas style of barbecue.
Along with the barbecue, McMillan said he’s been sharing a message of hope based on a passage from Romans about suffering producing perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And he tries to share some humor. That’s “not to make light of what’s happening,” he said, “but to try to give people a moment of levity and joy to know that God loves them and we love them.”
McMillan said Barbecue Baptist Church, which is a plant of the First Baptist Church there, is planning another road trip soon and hopes to continue even after the coronavirus pandemic ends.
–Dwight Widaman | Metro Voice