By Sara Horn

Sayre Woods Bible Church in Old Bridge, N.J., isn’t a typical Baptist church you might find in the South. Located less than an hour from New York City, the church is filled with commuters to the Big Apple, and the people are as diverse in culture as the community they live in.

“We did a consultation a year ago that found our church directly reflected our community (in terms of culture and background), which was a huge encouragement to us,” said Steve Foster, associate pastor of Sayre Woods. In fact, the church mirrors the community’s racial makeup – 60 to 70 percent white, 10 percent black, 5 to 6 percent Hispanic, and 5 to 6 percent Asian. The church also ministers to Nigerians and Filipinos, among others like Italians and Polish. An Arabic service is held at the church weekly. While Foster said the church doesn’t make “a big deal” out of it, they do celebrate the diversity because “when people come, they see the diversity and I think that increases the diversity.”

The church has been a purpose driven church for quite some time. Senior Pastor Joseph Douglass and the elder board read The Purpose Driven Church together back in the mid-1990s and adopted the five purposes which remain posted in the church’s main auditorium today. Each elder is assigned the responsibility of overseeing the ministries that relate to one of the five purposes.

In 2004, the church held went through the 40 Days of Purpose campaign.

“The church had never done anything like it before,” said Foster, who has served on staff for more than eight years. “It was the first time we really saw synergy with the sermon and the small groups, the Sunday schools, and the individual reading all on the same thing – people really enjoyed it.”

But with the success of the 40 Days campaign also came challenges, the biggest being the lack of time for people who wished to participate.

Before Foster came to Sayre Woods, he was at Fellowship Bible Church in Dallas, Texas. “(There) you eat together and do small groups, it’s much more laid back. That might work for some people but not the majority here.”

With hour-long commutes one way and the pace of life hectic and frantic for churchgoers, discretionary time is at a premium. It was a fact that the church discovered made forming small groups difficult, but not impossible.

“We had a number of small groups (meeting every two weeks) and most were outreach oriented, but they didn’t survive,” said Foster, despite some of the groups seeing a few people get saved as a result. “It’s harder to commit to an ongoing small group because when it’s ongoing, people tend to shy away from it.”

So the church came up with a solution: Adapt their small groups to the 40 Days of Purpose style. Small groups meet in eight week cycles in the fall, break during the winter when attendance is typically worse due to weather conditions, and come back together again in the spring. Sunday school is still held each week, but instead of age categories, the classes are divided by topics and are incorporated as electives to be chosen.

The same approach the church uses for small groups is also applied to welcoming visitors.

“When we talk about welcoming newcomers, it can’t be the Southern Baptist way where visitors raise their hand or put a sticker on,” Foster said. “No one wants to be identified that way, people have to come and experience it. A well-staffed welcome center and trained greeters make newcomers feel welcome and a newcomer’s lunch is held once every quarter where they can eat, fellowship with church staff, and ask any questions they may have.

So what’s next for the church? As they prepare to launch the 40 Days of Community campaign, Foster is excited to see how God is moving in their midst. The church’s missions board recently held a missions conference with the theme: “Think globally, serve locally.” The conference focused on bringing missions to the local community. Almost simultaneously, a man in the church started a new “Loving Your Neighbor” ministry where teams of people reach out to meet the physical needs of widows, single parents, or the poor and disadvantaged.

“At the same time, we were planning the 40 Days of Community,” said Foster, who said the man leading the neighbors ministry is now working with the church to gear up for the 40 Days of Community campaign. “It’s awesome that all three things happened at the same time – it must be how God is leading us right now. We’ve always been a very mission-minded church, supporting worldwide missions, but we’ve been more neglectful of our local community. Now we’re trying to put an equal emphasis on our Jerusalem, so to speak.”

All 2006 Church Health Award winner information is correct as of Jan. 1, 2006.