Service
Central Reformed Church sees the face of Jesus in our neighbors through our service to others. Since our founding in 1840, Central Reformed Church has been committed to ministry in the core city of Grand Rapids.
In the mid twentieth century, we help found:
The Fountain Hill Center for Counseling and Consultation
And other organizations which continue their ministries today.
Thus, we seek to grow and maintain a wide variety of local opportunities for service. And each year we provide financial support to a number of local service organizations.
Food Ministry
Our oldest local ministry is Addie’s Pantry, Central’s own on-site food pantry that serves our neighbors twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays from Noon until 2 pm. Addie’s pantry is part of the ACCESS food pantry network and provides groceries, personal care items and bread donated by our local Nantucket Bakery. This year our children have been saving their offering money toward purchasing children’s books to give to our neighborhood children who visit Addie’s Pantry.
Addie’s Diner, on the first and third Tuesdays each month at 6 pm, provides a hot meal and fellowship with our neighbors.
All of these Addie’s ministries are named in honor of Addie Timmer, a Central Reformed Church member who had a passion for volunteering and for caring for her neighbors.
Special Projects
Every Christmas, Central designates a local direct service agency as the recipient of Christmas gifts purchased by Central’s members and friends. In 2008, over 100 gifts were purchased for the clients and families of the Domestic Crisis Center.
On Epiphany, our members and friends bring gifts to our worship service in honor of the gifts given by the Magi to the Christ Child. In 2009, our gifts will be given to Our Hope. A program helping women struggling with substance abuse issues.
Central members are active in a tutoring program with Grand Rapids Public Schools. Adults mentor a particular child and provide help not only with literacy skills, but also provide an opportunity for a healthy and nurturing relationship.
Central also periodically coordinates neighborhood dinners at sister congregations, such as Servants Community Church and Heartside Ministry.
In the winter, Central Reformed Church recycles phone books, and each spring brings a stream clean up effort of Plaster Creek.
Beyond the funds set aside in the annual budget for mission support, Central takes special Lenten and Thanksgiving offerings and distributes all monies to special needs identified by the deacons - a small inner-city church that needs a new furnace, for example, or an overseas mission center, or a local agency that needs help.
Youth
Central’s youth are involved in a variety of local and international mission and ministries. In 2008, a group of Central teenagers went to Romania to work with children in orphanages and gypsy camps.
Central recognizes the importance of training young people to make a difference for Jesus Christ in the world, and thus actively supports the work of educational institutions: Hope College, and Western Seminary in Holland, Michigan, New Brunswick Seminary in New Jersey, and the chaplaincy ministry at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan.
Central is proud to support Christian camps that give young people a happy, healthy camp experience in a Christian context: Camp Geneva and Cran-Hill Ranch.
Foreign and Domestic Missions
Central supports Reformed Church missionaries in Japan, Oman, and here in America. We support Reformed Church World Service, which speeds relief supplies to victims of disaster all over the world. Words of Hope, the worldwide radio ministry of the RCA also receives financial assistance from Central Reformed Church.