It seems almost too perfect, really. In a tiny Georgia town called Bethlehem, in a storefront space on Christmas Avenue, Nativity Lutheran Church has become a bright star of hope, grace and acceptance in its community.
It’s grown from a small mission start of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in 2006 to an ELCA congregation organized in 2013—the first Lutheran church in the area. Today, Pastor Patti Axel leads the congregation of about 100 members in the town of fewer than 1,000 people. A semi-rural area, Bethlehem has its share of poverty and some middle-class neighborhoods, but little to no wealth.
The church’s mission has always primarily focused on its neighbors rather than those inside its doors. “God doesn’t call us to hang out and feel happy together by ourselves and not do anything,” Axel says. “God calls us to go out and serve, so we exist to serve our neighbor.”
To answer that call, the church has reached out to its neighbors in need. A nearby chicken-packing plant has attracted a population of immigrants, for example. Several church members who are retired educators mentor the women of these families, helping them to obtain their GEDs and teaching them life skills.
Nativity also partners with other church groups to feed students in two counties who qualify for a free lunch. During summer break, the church makes lunches for the 2,000 kids and delivers the meals right to the neighborhoods. Nativity also holds Servant Camp every summer, where teens volunteer to make small household craft projects, like birdhouses and key holders, to donate to the local Habitat for Humanity.
At Christmas and Thanksgiving, the church adopts families and provides them with a holiday meal and, in December, gifts. They do the same for the women and children at a local domestic violence shelter and at a place called Hope Lodge, which is like a Ronald McDonald House for adults undergoing life-saving cancer treatments at Emory University in Atlanta.
That’s a long (and not even complete) list of community outreach for such a small church, but Axel says the congregation doesn’t do it alone.
“There just seems to be so much need that you can get overwhelmed,” she says. “But you don’t have to do it all. There’s a good ecumenical ministerial association in the area, and we’re part of that. Together we can do so much more.”
And Nativity hopes to increase its efforts further. It recently acquired its own church property with a commercial kitchen and about four times the square footage (no longer on Christmas Avenue, but just as good: Bethlehem Church Road).
Axel says she hopes they’ll be able to feed even more hungry kids as well as offer free meeting space to other local nonprofits, like a Hispanic congregation that worships at Nativity on Sunday afternoons and a Boy Scout troop that meets there regularly. She also hopes that making its gathering place a traditional, steepled building means more people notice the tiny church making a big difference.
“People want to know that you’re going to do something,” Axel says. “They don’t really care as much about what your doctrine is these days as they do that you’re out in the community helping, and I think that’s what they see with Nativity.”
NATIVITY LUTHERAN CHURCH
Bethlehem, Ga.
Pastor: Patti Axel
Website: NativityBethlehemGa.org
Launched: 2013
Affiliation: Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Weekend Attendance: 60-75,/p>