2007 Honorable Mention
Good News Community Church
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Recognized as a small church of 40 people doing what they can to address AIDS in their local community. |
Name and location: Good News Community Church, Atlanta, Georgia
Denomination: Christian Reformed
Pastor: George Boyd
Date Founded: 2000
Total Church Membership: 48
Outstanding Involvement and Effectiveness in the Fight Against AIDS:
What began as a project distributing sandwiches and prayer cards to drug addicts and the homeless in Atlanta has transformed into a broader initiative to help address housing, health care and medical needs of people infected with HIV. Since 2005, more than 150 have been helped, and their health conditions have improved significantly. Moreover, the church's efforts have improved the community as a whole by removing people from the streets of Atlanta, reducing the number of emergency-room visits to local hospitals and reducing the number of AIDS-related deaths linked to a poor health and dietary conditions.
Impact on the Congregation:
The church currently has three staff devoted to this project and 20 committed volunteers. Those individuals infected with HIV who benefit from the program frequently address the congregation, expressing their gratitude. Such appreciation, in turn, generates greater understanding of and willingness to embrace-literally and figuratively-people who are HIV-positive. Moreover, church members who are HIV-positive have come forward and are supported as well.
Pastor's Quote: "We soon realized that an initiative was needed that did more than feed the masses; we needed an initiative that was concerned with the total of a person living with HIV/AIDS."
Comment from the Judges: "It has often been stated with the overwhelming nature of the AIDS pandemic, 'What can one church do?' ... Good News didn't so much debate answers to this question, but set to work with what they had been given by God and made a difference where they were... (Y)ou have ministered to Christ and serve as a living illustration of Matthew 25 in that as you have done this to 'the least of these' you have done your service unto Christ."
