A Texas Town Skips Church for a Day to Undertake the ‘Big Serve’

Church attendance is such a big part of life in the Texas hill town of Wimberley that a dozen churches serve the community of 3,800 residents and many churches hold services more than once on Sundays.

But churchgoing in Wimberley took on new meaning one Sunday morning this summer when most churches canceled or shortened services so parishioners could donate a full morning of volunteer labor to spruce up Wimberley schools. Participants in the “Big Serve,” as it was called, mowed lawns, painted walls, poured concrete, washed windows, built cabinets, and cleared brush.

Giving up a church service for community service seems to have been very popular. The nearly 500 people who participated were more than twice as many as organizers had expected, according to Michele Gooch, an assistant pastor at Cypress Creek Church, a nondenominational evangelical congregation.

“I was flabbergasted,” says Ms. Gooch. “I saw a guy 80 years old or older working outside in 100-degree heat. We knew the parents of schoolchildren would all come out. The people that surprised me were the retirees and twentysomethings who didn’t have kids yet, or just had babies.”

Among the participants were Diane and Francis Savage, recently retired farmers who are members of Saint Stephen’s Episcopal Church.

“I just wanted to serve the Lord,” says Ms. Savage. “We enjoy working outside. When they said they needed people, we thought that sounded like a good idea. We wanted the schools to be in the best condition they could be in and to let the kids and teachers know we care.”

‘Outside Our Walls’

The idea for the Big Serve came from Rob Campbell, pastor of Cypress Creek Church.

He had read The Externally Focused Church, by Rick Rusaw and Eric Swanson, and recommended it to the monthly meeting of local clergy members who were receptive to the book’s message of community service.

“I had an epiphany,” Mr. Campbell says. “You know, if all of us had read the book, it could be a catalytic deal to get us looking outside our walls. My agenda was not to do something together. I thought each church would find a niche in the community and do something on their own, but we basically committed to doing something together.”

Community service to aid the Wimberley Independent School District was an obvious choice because it has been struggling with tight finances that have hurt school maintenance, he says.

In recent years, the Wimberley school district had tightened its belt due to a dispute with the state, says Dwain York, the district’s superintendent. Wimberley has opposed a state law that requires the town’s taxpayers to contribute about 20 percent of a $20-million budget for support of poorer schools in Texas.

Mr. Campbell attributed the strong participation in the Big Serve to Wimberley’s “volunteer spirit,” to the effort’s grounding in prayer, and its collaborative nature rather than a single church’s project.

It was not a difficult decision for him to cancel services, says Mr. Campbell. Many parishioners were “thrilled,” he says, at the change in their Sunday routine, especially because it didn’t add to their church commitment.

“In our congregation of over 1,000 people,” he notes, “I had zero negative feedback.”

He adds: “Our church has done a good job over the years of looking outside our walls. But this underscores the statement that the church is the people, not the building.”

Each participating clergy member contributed to spreading the word, using the pulpit, the church newsletter, or an appointed recruiter to rally their flocks. “For three or four weeks every Sunday, something was said” about the event, says Ms. Gooch.

Promoting the event as the Big Serve, a name taken from The Externally Focused Church, also helped raise awareness of the volunteer day, she says. A motivational message about the event — a quotation taken from the book that inspired it — was displayed prominently in many churches: “If you picked up and left, how would the city feel? Would anyone care? Would anybody even notice?”

‘It Was Awesome’

More than 2,000 hours of labor were contributed by 400 to 500 volunteers — and both the work accomplished and the high spirits were impressive, Ms. Gooch says.

“We accomplished three months of maintenance in a four-hour period,” she says. “Everyone was saying we need to do this again next year. We want to keep this spirit of community alive.”

However, she notes, managing so many volunteers presented a logistical challenge. Each work party was led by a crew leader, and all parties at each work site were managed by a coordinator, who kept in phone contact with other work sites. Organizers appointed “runners,” who shuttled tools and equipment among sites.

Maintaining a sense of inclusion was also key, says Vicky McCuistion, the organizer of Wimberley United Methodist Church’s volunteers. “We did everything we could to involve everybody. Older people did child care and lunches.”

One decision organizers came to regret: allowing young children to help paint, as some of them tracked spilled paint from dropcloths onto bare floors. “They were great workers,” allows Ms. Gooch, but “they were just too sloppy.”

The Wimberley district’s 2,000 students benefited from the event, says Mr. York, the school superintendent. “To say I was surprised doesn’t even begin to describe it,” he says. “I was overwhelmed. It was awesome. The amount of work they accomplished would have taken us an entire summer. They worked their tails off.”

Neighboring towns have already contacted the Big Serve’s organizers to inquire about duplicating the effort. “We got a real good response,” says Ms. Gooch.

And organizers intend to mount another Big Serve event in Wimberley in the future. Although it is too early to say whether the first event increased church attendance or donations, organizers say, it has stimulated an appreciation of community and service. New friendships were formed among the volunteers as they worked, says Cherie Conway, interim director of Unity Church of Wimberley. “It was one of those wonderful examples proving to us there is nothing that separates us,” she says.

More than just the appearance of buildings and grounds changed in the Big Serve, says Mr. Campbell.

“There was something that happened in the spiritual realm that day that I cannot articulate,” he says. “Something shifted. You could feel it.”