| What is Miracle Day? |
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| The Amish and the Mennonites have a custom. When one of their neighbors needs a barn, the whole community comes together. The most experienced members direct the work while young men provide the muscle to raise the beams. The skilled carpenters dowel and joint the beams together, and the women bring food and water. Often within a single day a new barn blooms on the horizon. It is an effective way to build a barn without heavy equipment, but it is more than that. It is also a social occasion and a chance for workers to feel the pleasure of accomplishing something good, significant and tangible. This is the idea behind Miracle Day, the Disciples of Christ event that will take place June 7. 2008 at First Christian Church in Cullman, AL. |
| At 8 am on that morning, some 150-250 disciples from across the Alabama-NW Florida area will show up at the 80 year old church building wearing work clothes and carring tools. Waiting for them at the church will be materials laid out at the appropriate locations for a dozen different projects needed to revitalize the 88 year old church building. Some of the workers will install a chair lift on the stairway from the basement fellowship hall to the sanctuary on the floor above. The lift will allow members, more than half of whom are over the age of 65, to continue to worship even when age prevents them from climbing the steps. Another team will make the building more wheelchair accessible from the outside rebuilding a decaying exterior handicap ramp. Other workers will pull out more than half a dozen rotting basement windows and replace them with new glass block units. Another team on scaffolding will reglaze stained glass into wood sashes in the sanctuary-- a project that became a priority in the last month when two of the panes actually fell out due to the failing glazing. A team in the basement will be adding a wainscot to cover a water-damaged basement wall. A group on the third floor will be finishing out storage spaces to make new classrooms while another storage room off of the sanctuary will be converted to a pastor's study. There will be a team reworking plumbing and moving walls for the bathrooms. And a group outside will be building a brick retaining wall and installing paving bricks. If you wold like to make these projects happen, just download a volunteer form below, complete it and give it to the Miracle Day coordinator at your congregation. If you do not have a miracle day coordinator, you may mail the form directly to Mandy Harbin, c/o First Christian Church, P.O. Box 37, Cullman, AL 35056. |