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Shirland is a small town northwest of Rockford that has a population of only about 200 people. In the center of town is the United Methodist Church. Pastor Roland Harkleroad tells of a congregation and a small town where a lot of older members had died or moved to nursing homes. “I used to give children’s sermons but there were no children to listen,” says Rev. Harkleroad. “There were a lot of new people in town and we wanted to find a way to reconnect.”
Then a member of the congregation, Kathy Winters started to think and pray about children. “There are a lot of working parents in town”, says Winters, “and in this small town, there aren’t a lot of things for children to do. There aren’t swimming lessons or soccer practice.” Winters began to think about what makes kids happy and this light bulb went on in her head: “Ice Cream.” She set up a small table on the sidewalk in front of the church on Wednesday nights and made signs announcing, “God Love is Free … and so is ice cream.”
“At first, no one would stop,” she says. “People were suspicious, but I acted a little crazy.” Winters describes a bit of silliness. She would see kids on their bikes and she would run after them offering ice cream cones. Pretty soon people started stopping for ice cream. At first parents would drop their kids off for ice cream and drive away but in the second year of the ice cream give-a-ways, parents are coming too. And Winters recruited two helpers, Barb Stout and Merry Kate Sweeny, a teenager from the congregation to join her. These church volunteers sit on the lawn of the church and found that kids weren’t just getting ice cream, but according to Winters, “They wanted to talk.” And adults wanted to talk to. “This is an old fashioned idea,” said Winters. It is back to the days “when people just stand around and talk to each other.” But Winters observes “people are hungry” for this connection. These three volunteers and more are there on Sunday morning to teach Sunday School and continue a connection to the kids who came for ice cream earlier in the week.
Now Shirland United Methodist Church has grown from three children to as high as twenty-two kids for Sunday School. Sunday school attendance averages 12-15. We didn’t start the ice cream give-away “as a trick to get people into the church” says Pastor Harkleroad, “But people have learned that we are not just an institution that is only open on Sundays.” Parents and grandparents have come to church when their kids are performing in special programs. Some people love the ice cream, but are still a bit reluctant to become church members. “We are being patient,” says Pastor Harkleroad while acknowledging other benefits from having more children at church. “We keep enlisting more people from the congregation to help in children’s Sunday School.”
The Town-Rural Ministries group of the Northern Illinois Conference has been encouraging and providing grants for “Planned Acts of Christian Kindness” (PACK) for several years. Shirland UMC received a PACK grant for their second year of “ice cream ministry” which enabled them to continue to provide ice cream for free. “People stop and try to make donations to us,” says Winters, “but because of our grant, we are blessed to continue to do this for free.” PACK is a non-denominational ministry movement that started in 2002 which focuses on sharing the love of Christ through simple programs that are locally planned, low cost, simple to plan and implement, provide high impact and low burnout for volunteers, and that offer a non-threatening way to interact with the community. Based on Acts 1:8 - "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in Judea, and in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” PACK revolves around this simple principle, “The world needs the love of Christ.” Rev. Brian William of Burlington United Methodist Church is a supporter of PACK. “I have seen it work in powerful ways,” he says and “it is something easy enough for any church or group of church members to do.”
“We serve kids that didn’t come to church before,” says Winters. “I think that kids have learned” an important lesson from our ice cream giveaways that as our signs say, “God’s love is free.” Shirland United Methodist Church has learned that church membership grows one relationship at a time, but that you have to gets outside the walls of the church to make it happen.
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