Andrea Henderson and Adam Salmons welcoming volunteers in front of the stadium Saturday morning.
Carrie Ford | Life Point
A little girl hula-hoops in a sea of bubbles at one of Life Point’s Serve Day stops
Joseph Pratt | Main Street Portsmouth
Portsmouth’s Life Point Church sent over 430 of its members into the community Saturday to spread the love of God and goodwill towards fellow man through their second annual Life Point Serve Day. The number of participants nearly tripled in size from last years estimated 160 volunteers.
This year, members of Lakeside Church in New Boston and First Presbyterian in Portsmouth teamed up with Life Point to assist in service.
Volunteers met at the Spartan Municipal Stadium for information on their services, they then sang songs and bowed their heads for a prayer led by Pastors Gerald Penix of Lakeside, Bruce Kreutzer of First Presbyterian, and Darrell Nickles of Life Point and left to go work.
The many volunteers were split between thirteen groups and sent out to perform services to the community, performing tasks such as gathering loose trash on the street, serving food, free haircuts, repairing homes and updating businesses, and more.
“At Life Point, we having a saying ‘saved people, serve people,’ and we believe that as followers of Christ, he was the chief servant and one of our callings is to serve other people,” said Pastor Darrell Nickles. “This is just a day where we challenge all of our members to show up and we’ve now invited other churches, to really go out and serve our community in mass.”
Some of the locations that the church worked in included the downtown Portsmouth area, Gampp’s in Wheelersburg, the Lucasville region and many more.
“This is an exciting event, this is what it’s all about, the church getting outside the four walls and serving the community. We’re part of the church, and we’re also a part of the community. We wanted to go out and show the love of Christ to those around us,” explained Pastor Gerald Penix.
Nickles said that he would like to see the growth continue and welcomes other members of the community and churches to join in. Interested churches should contact Nickles.
“You don’t have to attend Life Point to participate. Anyone can sign up to serve, we’ve had people invite their friends or their family members and we welcome anyone who wants to help out,” said Nickles.
For information, please contact Life Point Church via Facebook “Life Point Church Portsmouth,” or through their website www.lifepointportsmouth.com
Reach Ciara Conley at 740-353-3101 ext. 1932, Facebook “Ciara Conley - Daily Times,” and Twitter @PDT_Ciara
