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By Carrie Madren
UMConnection Correspondent

If you weren’t looking for it, you might not encounter Asbury-Jessup UMC, a small, white wooden church near Route 32 with bright red double doors just yards from Guilford Highway and close to a massive industrial park. But it’s tucked-away location doesn’t mean this small church doesn’t have a big impact in the Jessup community. 

Kent Smith, who’s attended Asbury-Jessup for some 15 years, has seen the church transform over the last three years. Just a few years ago, before the Rev. Gay Green-Carden was appointed, there was talk about Asbury-Jessup – built in 1867 and among the oldest churches in Howard County – merging with another church. 

“But God sent us a shepherd,” Smith said, and under Green-Carden’s leadership, Asbury-Jessup went from a church on the brink of closing to a vibrant, vital church. At that time, Green-Carden said, worship attendance hovered at around 40. Now there are some 110 active members. Smith, who has served as lay leader and lay speaker, chairs SPRC and directs the choir, guesses that 90 to 95 percent of the members are involved in some kind of ministry. Part of what makes the church vital and vibrant is subscribing to the ‘one body, many parts,’ logic of 1 Corinthians 12:12.

“When I first got there in 2009, I noticed the church was in dire need of Bible teaching,” said Green-Carden, a part-time pastor. Embarking on the 32-week Disciple Bible study, Green-Carden said that the congregation not only gained a greater understanding of the Bible, but was able to see the church’s vision and mission more clearly. 

One of the most important elements for vital church is preparing a clear vision and a mission statement, she said. Spiritual leaders emerged out of that first class, the pastor recalled. “We spent a lot of time talking about what the vision is for the church and what God wants us to do as a community of faith.” 

From there, the congregation began reaching outside of the church. The immediate community surrounding the historic church includes two prisons and a sprawling industrial park, as well as older neighborhoods. 

In a vital church, “it’s the goal of everyone – not just the pastor – to go out and sell who God is,” Green-Carden said. Asbury-Jessup members invite friends and neighbors to worship services, the choir or local small groups. “I believe if you invite them, they’ll want to be a part of this great family,” she said. 

Twice last year, members served breakfast to dozens of families at Ronald McDonald House, which hosts families with long-term hospitalized children. “They loved it, they all expressed how (rarely) they get a hot breakfast,” said Smith. 

“We went outside the church to build the church,” said Green-Carden, who makes herself known at the local funeral home and holds a weekly Bible study at the local assisted living center. The church advertises their Vacation Bible School to the community and typically draws some 60 to 100 kids. Come Christmas, they collect toys to donate to a prison ministry for locally incarcerated parents to be able to give gifts to their children. Last year, a Good Samaritan donated 50 bags of food that church members distributed within the community. Spring brings a women’s retreat. UMW and UMM groups also offer opportunities for service and fellowship. 

Part of Asbury-Jessup’s outreach strategy is using creative means to help people discover this growing faith community. For instance, when Girl Scouts at the grocery store asked Green-Carden if she wanted to buy Girl Scout cookies, she suggested they come to the church to sell cookies. “And from that, we brought a family to Christ – a mother, a father, and two children,” she said. “Once we were outside, we were able to embrace the different types of people that God wanted us to reach.”

Inside the warm, knotty pine-paneled sanctuary, a striking pearl-crowned cross draws the eye. At the back of the sanctuary, a posted fire marshal’s sign announces a limit of 99 persons; most Sunday mornings, however, attendance exceeds the limit. So the church formed a task force, a prayer group, and gathered consultants to relocate and grow the church, which can’t expand its current historic building due to the adjacent graveyard. 

“One of the goals is to be as visible as we can in the Columbia-Jessup area and to reach the unchurched,” said Green-Carden, who said that eventually the final goal is to construct a new church building. 

To get there, the congregation will continue to pray – an important part of maintaining a vital church, said Green-Carden. When she first arrived, they weren’t able to pay their apportionments to the conference, she said. “But by the grace of God, we’re now able to pay our apportionment in the first six months of every year.”

Revitalizing on the inside meant involving all generations: Every fourth Sunday is youth Sunday, where teens serve as worship leaders, Scripture readers, and more. To reach young people, the church has made a point to incorporate new technologies, such as using Bible apps on smartphones. Green-Carden also encourages the young members to talk about who they are, what church they belong to and who Christ is to them. 

“We went from not having a youth choir to having a choir that has 20 to 25 youth and young adults on a regular basis,” Smith said. 

“To become a vital church, you have to move outside of the walls of the church and create space for the unchuched,” Green Cardin said. That doesn’t always mean bringing people physically into the church building, but welcoming unchurched community members into prayer groups, homes and hearts – embracing the community.