Congregations continue custom of collaboration

On Sunday, May 5, the four congregations that make up the Milk River Churches (Chinook's American Lutheran, United Methodist and Presbyterian and Havre Presbyterian) will hold their monthly joint worship in the Commercial Building at the Blaine County Fairgrounds in Chinook. The service will include a special presentation by the students who attended the Friday morning Sonshine program this past school year.

Sonshine was created in 2017 and is supported and directed by the Chinook Alliance Church and the Milk River Churches. During the school year Sonshine meets on Fridays from 10-11am. Pre-school to sixth grade students may participate.

The offering from the joint service will used to help support the work of the Friends of the Pool and Park Foundation for improvements to the swim pool and Sweet Park in Chinook. Sunday's worship service begins at 11am with a potluck luncheon to follow.

Milk Rivers' co-pastor Theresa Danley will preach. The decision to hold the worship at the fairgrounds was to accommodate parents and friends of the Sonshine school. Sonshine will hold its last session for the 2023-24 school year in late April.

Chinook churches have cooperated on a number of programs and projects

The sharing of resources and mission is not new to the churches in the Chinook area. Cooperative agreements have ranged from joint Vacation Bible Schools in the summer to sharing of ministers from time to time. Here are some recent examples of how working together have helped spread the Gospel in this part of Blaine County.

One of the earliest and most enduring cooperative programs is JUMP-an evening program for seventh graders through seniors in high school. Teens with any or no religious background are all welcome. JUMP meets weekly at Wallner Hall and was started around 2006-7. The weekly meetings include a light meal, Bible study, fellowship and games. One night per month is dedicated to longer and more complicated games. JUMP (an acronym for Jesus Uses Motivated People) participants have done several mission projects involving trips to Savannah, Seattle, Hawaii, Greeley (Colorado) and a number in Montana. The participants raise the monies for the trips and do the tasks arranged for them during the trips. JUMP is famous for its popular Sunday brunches that are used to raise funds for the mission trips.

Loaves and Fishes was a program that provided summer lunches to children when school was not in session. It started in 2010 when local religious leaders, school and town officials and interested citizens gathered to ask, "How can we help our community." Out of that meeting it was learned Chinook did not qualify for funds to provide meals for needy kids through the school. A committee was created to create and oversee the program and it ran until 2020. Shortly after the committee voted to end the program, for a variety of reasons, the COVID shutdowns began and the program would have had to stop as well.

School year 2011-12 the Young Adult Volunteer (YAV) program was started. Under the auspices of the national Presbyterian Church the program was supported locally by the Presbyterian, American Lutheran, United Methodist, Alliance, Assembly and St. Gabriel's Catholic churches. The YAV program director noted, "Support by various congregations has come and gone over the years." The YAV program is still working though the number of applicants nationwide has diminished to some extent.

The program provides for as many as three young adults (YAVs) to spend a year living in Chinook and serving in various situations from tutoring students in schools to visiting and conducting worship services at the Sweet Nursing Home. The idea behind the program is to give young adults an opportunity to assess their own gifts and discern how they might best serve. Interestingly the first YAV, Maggie Lewis, spent a year in Chinook, left here to attend and finish seminary and came back to serve as pastor for three years with the Havre and Chinook Presbyterian Churches.

Sometime in the early 2000s another unique mission undertaken by various members of the local churches was the rehabbing of a house in Chinook,. A man was living in the house and could not do the work to maintain and update it. His son offered to pay for the materials if the local churches would do the labor.

Mark Billmayer, with the Chinook Alliance Church, explained, "Mike Bradley was Pastor at the Chinook Assembly Church and had building experience. Jim Stegmeier, an accomplished carpenter and part of the Alliance Church, also was a mainstay on the project. Mike and Jim supervised and the rest of us followed their directions." Members from many of the local congregations worked to put a new roof on the house, replace the old windows and reside the house. It was a mission supported by folks from many of the churches in town. One of the builder/volunteers shared, "I sure learned a lot about working on houses."

So, there has long been an inclination among the churches in Chinook to collaborate and work together on specific projects. In an era when many organizations are struggling to keep afloat, these local churches are still finding innovative ways to worship and serve God. Come be part of this journey and join them for the joint worship at the fairground, 11am, on Sunday, May 5.