St. Paul Lutheran Church started its Sunday morning service by singing ''Hark the voice of Jesus crying, who will go and work today?''
For some church members, that song set the tone for the day. For others, it reminded them of work projects already completed.
Labor Day weekend, for the second year, gave church members a chance to live their faith, to do something for others with projects from painting the Agape Church Wheel of Compassion Ministries in Pleasant Valley to visiting nursing homes or doing odd jobs.
The church has left the building.
That's the saying printed on the back of a T-shirt given to the Rev. Al Henderson for last year's work projects. He wore the shirt - part of his work clothes - to Sunday's service under his robes, reminding his flock, ''Jesus is God with his work clothes on.''
''We're going to be doing something good in Jesus' name,'' Henderson told the congregation. ''We're a going church, a doing church, all in the name of Jesus.''
For 14-year-old Emily Hindt, joining the group of workers at Agape Church was an easy decision. She joined ''the serve our Lord, and for the fellowship of others.''
She's done service work before as a student at St. Paul Lutheran School by going out and cleaning highways.
Stephanie Salisbury, 16, decided to join the work group after the youth group director, Jo Seltz, talked about it.
''I wanted to try it out and see what it was like to help others,'' Salisbury said.
With several members of the youth group working Sunday morning - including Sigourney Seltz, 17, and Landon Hughett and Nick Hindt, both 11 - a decision made quickly changed the work at Agape.
Getting ready for the St. Paul workers, Madai Taylor got a gallon of primer and gallon of paint for the outside of the church building. He thought the group would do touchups, but nothing more. Henderson, on the other hand, planned for workers to paint the complete building.
''I don't know if we have the budget for that,'' Taylor said.
That's when the youth group jumped in and agreed to use money in their treasury to buy paint for the church - an act of giving that left Taylor speechless.
''What better way to help?'' asked Jo Seltz. ''And we have the funds to do it.''
Diana and Brent Johnson joined the work group, she said, because ''pastor Henderson has encouraged us to remember that the church leaves the building. We're here today because he encouraged us to serve the Lord by serving others. I so admire what pastor Madai has been trying to do down here in God's name, and we're now a part of that.''
That sentiment was echoed by Bill Hughett, who said, ''anybody who's doing something to get drugs out of Fort Dodge, you might as well support him.''
Thirteen members of St. Paul Lutheran started work at Agape at 10:30 a.m. Sunday and after four hours had scraped and primed some parts of the church building, then completely painted it, scattered landscaping gravel, pulled weeds, mowed the lawn, pounded in nails that were sticking out of the ramp and moved across the street to clean up the park.
''It was a good venture,'' Henderson said. ''I read an article in The Messenger that they wanted to do landscaping, so I contacted him and we talked and talked again, and here we are. Good works rise up because of our Christian faith.''
Contact Sandy Mickelson at (515) 573-2141 or smickelson@messengernews.net
