Missions at First Baptist Church
Missions are a huge part of our congregational identity at FBC. We live out our faith by following the words and example of Jesus and finding practical ways to love our neighbors far and wide. Scroll down or use the buttons below to learn about our local, regional, and international missions efforts.
Local Missions at First Baptist Church
FBC partners with many local nonprofit organizations to help maximize our positive impact in the community. Our goal is to follow the example of Christ and love the marginalized and vulnerable in Murfreesboro in tangible and life changing ways. Below you'll find information about how we do missions here in Rutherford County.
Benevolence Ministry
Nearly every Wednesday from 10:30am to 12:00pm FBC opens its doors to provide essential aid and meet material needs within our community through our Benevolence Ministry. Assisted by faithful volunteers, our Senior Adult Pastor, Pam Pilote, helps participants navigate the often complicated and unfamiliar process of seeking help. Through the generous and faithful donations of our congregation, we offer individuals financial support for various utilities. For more information about this program, contact our church office at (615) 893-2514.
Coldest Nights Program
Each winter First Baptist Church opens its facilities to our unhoused neighbors on the coldest nights of the year. When the temperature drops below freezing, men are invited to our church for a warm meal and a safe place to sleep while women get the same hospitality at St. Paul's Episcopal Church.
To make this life-saving ministry possible, we partner with many other local organizations including The Journey Home, Murfreesboro Cold Patrol, Murfreesboro Rescue Mission, St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Central Christian Church, Murfreesboro Muslim Youth, and others who volunteer.
Community Helpers
FBC supports Community Helpers with regular financial contributions.
Community Helpers is a non-profit agency which has been in existence since 1981. They assist Rutherford County residents in meeting their emergency rent, utility, and medicinal needs while also making referrals and connecting our clients to local resources which have the potential of offering improved long-term circumstances. The target population includes low-income persons, the recently unemployed, single parents, senior citizens, the disabled, and chronically ill persons of all ages.
Greenhouse Ministries
FBC has a long history of affiliation with Greenhouse Ministries and supports this organization with regular financial contributions.
Greenhouse Ministries meets the physical needs of clients by serving food and giving out clothes, furniture, toiletries, bicycles and other basic necessities. They educate their clients by offering a variety of adult education classes including computer classes, GED tutoring, budgeting, sewing and literacy classes. Greenhouse Ministries connects their clients to other resources available in the community including job opportunities, housing availability and resources from other nonprofits. The final goal of Greenhouse Ministries is to walk along side their clients, taking them from a place of getting to a place of giving.
Habitat for Humanity
FBC is partnering with Rutherford County Area Habitat for Humanity, along with First Baptist on East Castle Street, to provide housing for a family in need within our community. This initiative, First Baptist Builds, is just the beginning of our ongoing partnership with habitat.
Habitat for Humanity is part of a global, nonprofit housing organization operated on Christian principles that seeks to put God’s love into action by building homes, communities and hope. Founded in 1989, Rutherford County Habitat for Humanity is dedicated to eliminating substandard housing locally, in Rutherford County, and worldwide, through constructing, rehabilitating and preserving homes; by advocating for fair and just housing policies; and by providing training and access to resources to help families improve their shelter conditions. Habitat for Humanity was founded on the conviction that every man, woman and child should have a simple, durable place to live in dignity and safety, and that decent shelter in decent communities should be a matter of conscience and action for all.
Insight Counseling Center
FBC supports Insight Counseling Centers financially and hosts their Murfreesboro offices in our facility.
Insight offers quality and compassionate mental health counseling services in person and via telehealth. Telehealth allows you to speak to a therapist in your home through a video conferencing application. Therapists are available to help with anxiety, depression, grief & loss, trauma, and relationship issues, among others, or to assist in processing the rapidly unfolding current events.
Isaiah 117 House
Isaiah 117 House is one of FBC's newest missions partners. We are thrilled to join them as they strive to create a loving place for children awaiting foster placement in Rutherford County.
When children are removed from their homes out of concern for their welfare, they are usually brought to the Department of Children’s Services Offices to await placement with a foster family. This wait can be several hours to nearly a full day. These children often have nothing with them and are scared, lonely, hungry, and in dirty clothing.
Isaiah 117 provides a comforting home where these children instead can be brought to wait – a place that is safe with friendly and loving volunteers who provide clean clothes, smiles, toys, and snuggly blankets. This space allows children to receive the comfort and care they need while DCS staff can do the necessary paperwork and identify a good foster placement.
Murfreesboro Cold Patrol
FBC partners with the Murfreesboro Cold Patrol to facilitate the Coldest Nights program, housing our homeless neighbors in our facilities each winter. We also support this organization financially.
The Murfreesboro Cold Patrol is working to end the revolving door of homelessness through outreach, advocacy, and resource support. They accomplish this by creating relationships built on trust, consistency, and brotherly love. They do their best to fill in the gaps to strategically end the revolving door of homelessness in Murfreesboro.
Possibility Place
Possibility Place is one of FBC's newest missions partners. We are thrilled to welcome them into our facility as they continue their mission to serve adults with exceptional needs in our community! They provide:
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Job training and volunteer skills where the participant can contribute to society and find personal fulfillment.
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Training for independent living skills.
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Opportunities for further learning of basic reading, math, and computer skills.
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Training for a lifetime of healthy lifestyle habits including recreation, exercise, and healthy choices.
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Opportunities to build friendships and learn strong social skills.
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Opportunities for the participants to grow mentally, emotionally, socially, and spiritually.
The Journey Home
FBC routinely works with the Journey Home on missions projects, partners with them to run the Coldest Nights program housing our homeless neighbors in our facilities each winter, hosts the Journey Home's administrative offices, and supports the organization financially.
Founded in 2006, The Journey Home is a Christian ministry that serves the homeless and disadvantaged of Rutherford County by helping to rehouse and provide resources and relationships that encourage faith, economic stability, wholeness, and reintegration into community life.
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Regional Missions at First Baptist Church
FBC engages in missions regionally by partnering with local organizations as well as sending financial support, supplies, and missions teams to help people in need in other communities. Below you'll find information about our Regional Missions partners.
Olive Branch Ministries, Ky
FBC Partners with Olive Branch Ministries to provide Shoeboxes for Appalachia each Christmas season!
Olive Branch Ministries is part of Together for Hope, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship's rural poverty initiative. They provide support to individuals in some of our nation's poorest counties, including Owsley, McCreary, and Powell Counties in Kentucky.
Pine Ridge, South Dakota
FBC has a faithful and passionate group of congregants who go every summer to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota to love, serve, and minister to the Lakota people there. The community in Pine Ridge suffers some of the most desperate poverty in America. Our mission teams there do construction projects, provide meals, enjoy Bible Study and arts and crafts, and have beloved fellowship with their friends on the Reservation.
International Missions at First Baptist Church
FBC Partners with Amani Sasa, a nonprofit organization that serves and empowers vulnerable populations in Uganda.
Amani Sasa
FBC Supports Amani Sasa in their missional efforts in Kampala, Uganda. Amani Sasa ministers to vulnerable refugees and their families who are traumatized, abused, trafficked and/or vulnerable to exploitation in Uganda. The ministry includes emergency services, counseling, group therapy and support groups for refugees. Amani Sasa also has in depth trauma healing and empowerment programs for young mothers, women, men and children at risk.
