University Baptist Church (UBC)
University Baptist Church
1701 Dutton Ave.
Waco, TX 76707
254-752-1401
254-752-7104 (fax)
Affiliations: Baptist General Convention of Texas
What regular ministries or activities does your church participate in that you consider to be a part of helping to prevent and heal poverty in Waco? Who organizes and orchestrates these activities?
- King’s club – Monday/ Wednesday/Friday 3 pm-5 pm, Saturday 10:30 am-12:00 pm. Care for and interaction with those who are often on the margins of society is a goal for future work within UBC and one of the most effective engagements of our community and the problems of poverty within is has come from four-day-a-week involvement with the children and families in the Kate Ross Community. (Volunteer based w/ Staff oversight)
- Food pantry – Individuals from the community are welcome to visit the church office during normal business hours to receive 5 cans of their choice from our pantry. The food pantry is a part of our benevolence program. Funds supporting our food pantry are allocated through our budget. Our normal business hours are Monday-Thursday from 9 am- 3pm. (Staff based)
- World Farm Hunger Relief – Twice a year, UBC sends volunteers to help the World Farm Hung Relief program during their fall and spring events. During these events, the World Farm Hunger Relief educates members from the community about their purpose as an organization and the potential in the church community locally and globally to enact change. Fair trade goods are sold to benefit individuals from developing countries, tours are given and other marketable goods are sold for the general cause of the World Farm Hunger Relief. (Volunteer based)
- Wednesday night services – Our Wednesday night service, The Hub, is an opportunity for our students to come celebrate God in a variety of ways. One week may be liturgical, another week creatively driven, and on another we will hear from a different voice from within the community. Students from within our congregation have spoken to share of their experiences with organizations such as TOMS shoes, the World Farm Hunger Relief and Simba Village. We have also had the opportunity of Pastor Boniface come speak to us about the needs of Simba Village regarding homelessness, orphans, widows and run-a-ways. UBC provides opportunities for students to learn of the needs at Simba Village through child sponsorship programs and donations towards Karama House. We take advantage of this time to educate our members of the various needs both locally and globally. (Staff and volunteer based)
- Lunch Buddy Mentoring Program – UBC has partnered with Cesar Chavez Middle School to provide a mentoring program through our college volunteers. Coordinated through Cesar Chavez’s instruction specialist, students are identified to participate in the program. College volunteers are paired with particular students in various stages of need and eat lunch with them once a week at their school. (Church and School staff based planning with volunteer action)
- Green Team – The green team is committed to help UBC and its members protect His garden through work at the church and within the community. We want to make a difference in our community and environment because the earth is a gift, we are its members and God saw that it was good. We aim to foster care for God’s creation through promoting simple changes in our everyday lives that include riding bikes to church and using mugs instead of Styrofoam cups. Recognizing that 70% of our waste if recyclable, we try to be good stewards of what God has given us and conscious of how our actions affect the community, the earth, and the members they hold. (Volunteer based)
What ministries and organizations do you support through your church budget that you consider to be a part of preventing and healing poverty in Waco?
- Mission Waco
- Baptist General Convention of Texas
- King’s Club
- Waco Community in Schools Lunch Program
How does benevolence work at your church? (Policies? How it works? Role of Social Work Intern? Money set aside for this purpose? Amount of usage? )
- Food Pantry – Individuals from the community are welcome to visit the church office during normal business hours to receive 5 cans of their choice from our pantry. The food pantry is a part of our benevolence program. Funds supporting our food pantry are allocated through our budget. Our normal business hours are Monday-Thursday from 9 am- 3pm.
- Now that UBC has a true staff social worker, future plans for a true benevolence program are being developed.
How do you educate your church community (children, youth, adults) about preventing and healing poverty, especially in the Waco community?
UBC utilizes a social worker, social work interns and volunteers within the church to become involved in the community in an intentional way. Educating our church community about the various opportunities to make a difference in Waco through local school partnerships, church community groups, speakers from within the community and community-wide events are all areas we strive to help prevent and heal poverty within the Waco community.
UBC strives to be mission minded in a way that allows us as a church to embrace the life we have been given within a culturally aware mindset. To fully understand the meaning of culture, we recognize it as simply the place in which you live that shapes how you think and how you live. Culture is like the water that we swim in, day in and day out. It’s what we breathe all day long yet never realize whether the way it is making us think is biblical or not. Culture gives us the lens by which we view life, God, scripture, each other, and ourselves. Taking this into consideration, we want to use these ideas to contribute to the missional goals of the church. As a church, we want to accept the call of Christ to live our lives as missionaries amidst a culture that constantly tries to sell us a different purpose and a different vision in life. We are missional in that we desire to be the incarnate Christ immersed in the world without becoming a product of it. If we are going to be the incarnate Christ in today’s world, then our purpose, goal, and end in life will revolve around knowing God and making Him known.
Do you integrate concern for preventing and healing poverty into your worship? What does that look like?
This often takes the form of volunteerism through community focused acts of service and worship amidst our time and work in everything from neighborhood investment/cleanup to donation drives for clothes and supplies for local children and families. This focus is also accomplished partly through members in our congregation contributing to our lyrical composition of songs that are presented before our members and prayers that are written for Sunday worship services. These lyrical compositions and prayers often revolve around local and global issues affecting society.
Anything else you want to tell us about how your church is engaging with preventing and healing poverty in Waco?
At this point and time we feel we are in a new phase of community focus and planning for the future and with the addition of a paid social worker on staff we are excited for the possibilities the future holds for continued planning and implementation of actively engaging poverty and potential within the city of Waco and the world.