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When I hear stories of small churches having incredible community impact, I can’t wait for you to hear too.
Today’s guest, Adre Hurst, shares how one person’s passion for helping foster families led to statewide involvement with area churches and community organizations joining the effort.
Throughout this interview you’ll hear the story of Coalition Church in Supulpa, Oklahoma along with simple steps that could be a model for your next community outreach idea:
- One person has a passion and shares it.
- Coalition Church leadership asks, “How can we help?”
- They look at the gifts in their church family and put together a plan.
- They follow the plan.
- Lives are changed.
- Community organizations and other churches see the impact and offer to help.
- Coalition Chuch accepts their help, forming partnerships & deepening relationships.
- More lives are changed.
It’s yet another story of a small church doing big things! Be encouraged.
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Connect with Adre Hurst:
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093: How One Small Church Turned Their Passion For Foster Families Into Statewide Impact & Community Partnerships
Laurie Graham 0:01
Hey, this is Laurie Graham. Welcome to the Small Church Ministry Podcast.
Laurie Graham 0:14
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Small Church Ministry Podcast. I have a special guest on with us today, Adre Hurst. She’s going to introduce herself in just a minute. But I just want to say this is like, probably the most fun I have with Small Church Ministry is meeting amazing people, not just from across the country, but from around the world, and Adre is one of those people. We put out an open call for speakers for the Christmas conference that we just did. That was all about just less stress and more impact over Christmas, and Adre had turned in this application and she’s like, I just feel like, I just feel really compelled that I need to share this. And so we were so excited to have her as a speaker, but I also wanted her to share with all of you what her church did as an outreach at Christmas time, and not just because of the specific project, but because of her heart behind it and her passion and just like what a church of 100 people can do, and the impact that can be made.
And so as you listen to Adre’s story, I would love for you just to think about like in your small church, what’s unique? Who do you have? Where might God be working? Because if you think there aren’t needs in your community, or even within your state that your church uniquely could meet like, you’re wrong, like you’re just flat out wrong, like there’s so many needs. So I’m just excited to just get to know Adre, a little more in public on the podcast with you all. And so Adre, do you just want to like, tell us a little bit about you first before we jump into this project.
Adre Hurst 1:43
Okay, so my name is Adre. I’m from a church that opened mid-COVID, March of 2021, when the lock downs were kind of lifting, but still kind of heavily in place across the country. It was two of our family churches. So my father-in-law was the pastor of one church, my cousin was the pastor of another church, and we came together during COVID because our conjoining churches kind of, I guess you’d say, died off with the, the pandemic. And so we, this was something that had always been in the works, but it finally came to fruition during COVID and we started the church back in 2021. And I started as the sole kids pastor, and my husband was on a team with youth of youth pastors. And so me and my husband, actually, we had just come back from college, and the end of 20, may 2019. So right before COVID, had started and had our daughter in 2020. So it was kind of a crazy, first couple of years, having a two year old with starting a new church with our family. I’m originally from the state of Texas, so all of everything was just so new to me, and serving and the capacity that we were serving in was a lot as I’m only 25 and I was 22, 23 when we started the new church, I don’t think my math is right, but.
Laurie Graham 3:12
Wow, and tell me about small churches, like because you’re in a small church, you know, 90 to 100 on a Sunday. Did you grow up in small churches? Was the small church experience new to you or?
Adre Hurst 3:24
Kind of. I wasn’t, because I was so young when I left my church back home to come to school in another state. I wasn’t fully involved in all of the crazy craziness of church leadership. But are my I want to say my home church was on average 100 to 150. So on the small side, but they always, they had always kind of, we always had a lot of younger people. So our youth groups were very big, our kids ministry was really big. So all of our events at the church kind of revolved around that. Whereas here when I first started coming to the church before COVID, it was a lot of older people. We had a youth group, and my brother-in-law was the youth pastor at the time, but it was a lot of teenagers that this was the only time they got God, was on Wednesdays, and only if they could get themselves there because we didn’t have a bus ministry at the time either. So kind of starting this, we kind of all started from scratch, restarting the whole church. So it was it was a learning experience. For sure.
Laurie Graham 4:36
Yeah, yeah. Well, I love what you even just said about the difference, you know, two different churches, very different in culture, but the same size and that’s so true of small churches everywhere. There’s so much uniqueness. And so as you share your big idea, your big dream, your big thing that this small church did. I just know it’s going to be inspiring to people because sometimes we think that only big churches do big things, but you guys did a big thing. Do you want to share about it, the Winter Wonderland.
Adre Hurst 5:03
Sure. So it originally started in the Christmas time of 2021, and it was called Milk and Cookies with Santa Claus. So a lady who had just started coming to our church that June, for the home kids camp that we did back out at our land First Ranch. Because we were brand new, we weren’t trying to go to a big kids camp. So she had started coming, and she had started this idea and she came to me as her kids, children’s pastor and was like, this is what we’re wanting to do. I’ve been in contact with the foster community. DHS, I think, is what they call it, in Oklahoma, and they, she found out that the state of Oklahoma didn’t have any Christmas function that was sanctioned and sponsored by DHS itself. So she was, she said that she wanted to change it and would we like to be a part of it?
Laurie Graham 6:06
So meeting the needs of foster kids or foster families at Christmas time, this person in your congregation finds out that the state isn’t doing anything, and could we help? Like that alone is so beautiful to me, like, it’s like, this is where these, I think this is where the best outreach programs, ideas, the best outreaches happen isn’t just, you know, oh, this idea I heard from somebody else, but it’s an actual need that somebody is seeing in your community. So cool. Okay, keep going.
Adre Hurst 6:37
And so the first year, it was really small, because it was, I want to say we put it together in like three weeks. So a local business has what we call their mansion. It’s a pretty big house in the center of a town, the town, and we had a Santa Claus, a Mrs. Claus, we had a cookie decorating station because the lady whose idea this was, that brought it to me trying to get the church involved she, she baked cookies, and that was her, how she made her living. She baked cookies and started doing birthday cakes and stuff for the foster cares’ kids first and then had this idea of this Christmas thing. And she, so we had a cooking decorating, we had presents upstairs, and Mrs. Claus.
Laurie Graham 7:30
Okay, and I’ve got to stop you again. So this is Milk and Cookies with Santa, and so the woman has this idea. There’s a need, and you don’t just start looking online for what they, what other people have done, fhe has this like gift, passion, skill in making cookies. Like, I don’t even know if you’re hearing like how this all fell together, but like that is also so cool, and that’s what we teach, like, what do you, who do you have? What do you have? What is God already provided, and how do you use that, right? Instead of, oh, I found this online, let’s figure out how to make it happen, but looking internally, so, okay, cool. So you’ve got this idea for milk and cookies and foster kids and families, keep going.
Adre Hurst 8:10
Okay, and so that year, the first year that we did it, I think we were able to provide Christmas presents for 100 kids in the city of Sapulpa or, I want to say it was Creek County, which is our local county that we live in, and including the girls home that was in the city, in the town as well. So fast forward a year. It’s like September or October, and we’re talking and planning again and she wants to do it bigger. She wants to get more people. She wants to do it statewide. We were like okay, what can we do? And we had a meeting up stairs in our we call it our war room, which is where all of our scheduling, and our meeting and the praying stuff goes on, and with her and then the local DHS agent, and we decided that we’re going to use our family land that my father-in-law and sister-in-law own, which consists of about 80 acres and a pond. Pond scared me for a minute because of safety issues, but God took care of it. And so we set up a plan and we got to work. We started recruiting businesses, local community businesses that wanted to donate money to the, to it, to be able to put, buy the Christmas lights, and communities wanting to donate things. We had a bookstore. I cannot for the life of me remember what the bookstore is, but donated a lot of Christmas themed books or just educational books to be handed out.
We had several churches coming to us saying that we want to be a part of this, and by us, I mean her and then she would kind of let us know hey, this is what’s going on, and I was in, in all of this, I was kind of her right hand, like you’ve got an idea kind of tell me what you need me to do, who can I communicate this to to get it taken care of. And then we, then the family started signing up, and I want to say that was probably the stressful part, because then it just kind of blossomed to 125 families. And which, looking back on it was over 300 children and went up to like 500 people, but we had churches wanting to bake cookies for us, their schools wanting to bake cookie for, cookies for us, other bakers, like the lady baking cookies for the event, churches coming to grill hot dogs. We ended up separating Mrs. Claus and Miss, Mr. Claus, Santa Claus. And he, so we had a Santa Claus, where they would write a letter to Santa. So we had a letter, kind of a letter mailbox, that was decorated, that was donated, or we found at Lowe’s or something. And so they had letters to Santa decorating thing, and then they would mail the letters to them, to Santa. And then they would go in and meet Santa Claus, take a picture with them, they would get their present and their stocking, and then there was an option to have a storytime with Mrs. Claus.
Adre Hurst 11:33
So kids would go and she’d read them a story. And this wonderful lady reached out to, and is a friend of the original lady’s, and she she was just head over heels with what we were doing and what she had started and what it had become. And so we ended up, I couldn’t even tell you the numbers, my, with the Christmas lights that my father-in-law strong everywhere, if it was a tree, within the set of land that we were using, it had lights on it. And the most, the one thing that I think I enjoyed the most other than the kids because I, as the children’s pastor at heart I kind of, seeing the joy on children’s faces makes me, helps me feel fulfilled. I don’t know how that makes sense, but was the Heroes. It’s a local company that dresses up as superheroes and princesses, and they would go to like hospitals and stuff, but they reached out and wanted to be a part of this. And they came and they dressed up and the kids head over heallls, like that was one of their favorite parts. Not even meeting Santa Claus and getting their presence. And part of what we do as a church is we have a food bank in our town, and there was something we were doing and Salvation Army reached out to us and wanted to donate 50 bikes to give out to the kids during this event. And so that was, I want to say, that was the point where everybody knew that what we’re doing, everybody’s seeing it, and everybody’s seeing the love that God is showing and giving the passion to us for.
Laurie Graham 13:22
Wow. There, there are so many things, and Adre I, you’re telling the story so simply like oh, this just happened and this just happened, but there’s so much brilliance and so much God’s stuff through it. Because again, you started with hey, there’s a need in the foster care community that isn’t being met. Somebody says, I have an idea. What do I have? I have cookies coming to the church and you guys say how can we help? And then her idea gets bigger, and she has this dream, and you don’t say oh, that’s too big for us. You say, what can we do? And like look at how so many other organizations and people got involved. Salvation Army’s giving bikes, another group of Heroes comes up, other churches are joining you, and I want to say, from what you’re saying, I don’t think that was like the master plan, right? Like, all these pieces just kind of kept coming in. Like what do you think of that? Like, how do you think that all happened?
Adre Hurst 14:16
I don’t know. I’ve always had the thought that if you do what God has laid on your heart, no matter how big it is, or how impossible it may seem, God will provide the pieces that are needed. And all the pieces will fit together, and the thing with our church, it’s called Coalition Church, which is the joining together of things and working together. And I think part of it, I’m trying to say this without sounding weird, part of it, I think, is that we, we as a church at Coalition Church as a leadership believe that the big c Church is what matters and our local church is just a tool that God uses. And so, and I think that having that mindset kind of helps. We’re going to do whatever we’re told to do by God, and He will provide what needs to be provided.
Laurie Graham 15:13
You know, I love that. We talk about that so much in Small Church Ministry that our little, local churches we’re just satellites. We’re part of the big Church. And so, you know, your church does this and that church does that, and like, we’ve got all quit copying and trying to duplicate what’s already happening, because you literally found a hole, like a hole in the community of needs that you could step into, and now you’re watching other people get excited for it. So like, I just, I’m so grateful that you’re sharing this, for sure, with all of us. I think it’s really good to wake up to the need in foster communities because I don’t know of any communities who aren’t touched by foster families, although you may ignore them and not know they’re there, they’re there, and there’s a lot of need in the foster community. But there’s also a lot of needs out there that we’re just walking by every day, because every church may not be called to, you know, step into the foster, foster family world. With Winter Wonderland at First Ranch, what, what did you think are the, you know, biggest points of impact for these families? Like what did you see happen with it?
Adre Hurst 16:14
So we, we actually opened Winter Wonderland to not only their foster kids, but also the, their biological family, kids, and because Christmas, during Christmas time, country-wide, we tend to see like a spike in costs and prices. So we were able to provide the gifts for all of their family, and just being able to help take some of that burden off of the of the families as a whole was, I think, the biggest, one of the big impacts, but also just providing a fun, safe, family-friendly environment for these children who don’t have or may not have the greatest life and may not come from, like the ones placed into the foster system may not have a very friendly background. And they may not know what Christmas could look like.
Laurie Graham 17:14
Have you always had a heart for foster families and foster kids?
Adre Hurst 17:19
Me? No. Only because I, I guess I just never paid attention to it, to be honest. And then, so my, my biggest where my heart lies was the special needs children, and we were, and this part I pushed, this year I was able to push for a whole hour where kids with special needs, who needed quiet, who needed a calming-ish environment could have it. And so that’s where my heart had always lied, laid, laid, but kind of opening my eyes to, really, being a part of this has opened my eyes to the community that I work in as a teacher and realizing, or as a para, realizing how many students in our actual school district are in foster care or don’t live with their parents because of X, Y, and Z reasons, it, it has changed my heart towards it.
Laurie Graham 18:23
Wow, that’s so beautiful. Do you think every community has children and families in foster in these types of situations?
Adre Hurst 18:32
Oh, most definitely. I think, at least, it may not be like an official foster care system and our official official foster care family. But I do think that there’s a big possibility that you have kids living with their grandparents, you have families who may have lost their kids to something, a mistake that they had made in the past and they’re living with regret and stuff of not having their kids. I think it’s a, it’s more common than we think, for sure.
Laurie Graham 19:03
Yeah, I think it’s actually one of those areas that small churches can step into and make an incredible impact because when you’re impacting the life of one family or two or in your case 500 or 300 or whatever, you know, like how, how incredible that is because the ripple effect, you know, when we step into some of those community needs are amazing. So I asked you about the impact on the foster families. How about the impact on you? Like being part of this project for the past couple years and stepping into an area that you just said you weren’t even passionate about, you didn’t even know much about the foster, you know, families and, and the needs. How has this, being part of Winter Wonderland, how has this impacted you?
Adre Hurst 19:42
It, it has opened my eyes to a lot of good, but also a lot of bad because I could originally turn my eye to or turn a blind eye to things that maybe didn’t concern me, but when I see it now, or and I know what it is, and just anything from the, seeing the brokenness in the schools with these kids that are in foster care, or they live in the community homes, or they don’t live with their parents, because they live with grandma or grandpa or aunt, uncle, for any reason, and from parents dying to just having to be taken away from them, it has, my heart has always lyed with kids, lot laid with kids ministry, and then focused around that, but I’ve never seen the brokenness that really is there until being a part of this and being able to be a light, and not just, and I don’t mean, sharing the gospel with them, or telling them about Jesus all the time, but just kind of being that friendly, familiar face that they know. Just, it has opened my eyes, but also softened my heart a lot.
Laurie Graham 21:03
Wow, hey, so tell me more about your church and what else you do, because I know this is one project you all do. But what else do you do in your church, and what do you love about your small church?
Adre Hurst 21:12
Okay, so, our church is very much community driven, we’re all about, me and my husband’s favorite saying, as youth pastors is we don’t care where you go to church at, as long as you go to church, but when you’re in our presence, we will show you the love of Jesus, and that’s what we tell our youth, when they’re like, oh, I’m sorry, we can’t be there on Wednesday night, I was invited to this other church. And as much as we would love to have you there, you’re going to church, and I’m not going to complain about that. And so here, we’ve done a couple different things, a couple different years. We, before would have kind of quarterly movie nights for the kids, it would be a family movie night, and not just, we wouldn’t just play like VeggieTales, like we would play a clean, animated, like Disney show, essentially, a movie, just to try and get more families to, kind of come see what our families look like together. And we, our youth have a an annual, we call it Hollyween. It’s Halloween, but we grill, we have a bonfire if it’s cool, and we go to the pumpkin patch that’s about two or three miles from our house. Then they can fish if they want to, on our pond and everything, and we participate in our local trunk or treat Fall Festival thing, which is right around the corner.
Laurie Graham 22:55
It all just keeps coming, right?
Adre Hurst 22:58
And a lot of it is, a lot of it’s community based. Nothing that we do, everything that we do, is based around how we can impact the community I think, and me and my husband volunteering at the school for football, me working at the school, him subbing at the school, our, our pastors all work together, and they own a business and they’ll bring food leftover from the Reach, which is our outreach food bank distribution that we do, to the youth that play football, and kind of help fill the locker, the coach’s office with snacks for them because our kids may not get to eat or the cafeteria runs out of food somehow, and they don’t get to eat before practice. So we have food for them, and, I want to say, this year they’re adding a community worship Christmas Eve nope, not Christmas Eve, we do that every year, New Year’s Eve, there’s the Eve I was looking for. New Year’s Eve worship kind of party, which that’s new. So and we participate in parades. And I think God has actually kind of shown a couple of us of a youth conference that we’re going to be hosting in the next year or so. So.
Laurie Graham 24:31
Oh, I can’t wait to hear more. So you’re not just involved in your community at Christmas time? You and your husband and your church, sounds like, really have a vision for outreach all year long.
Adre Hurst 24:42
Yes.
Laurie Graham 24:42
Yeah. So important with those, just the longer-term relationships. I know a lot of times we try to, you know, small churches try to throw an event here and there and I think what makes the long-term difference is really having those relationships. And have you even seen that your reputation as a church has grown like in your community? Like does your community know you as like the church who helps people?
Adre Hurst 25:03
Yes, I have. So before we were just, when we first started, we were kind of just the church that’s out, far out there on the highway outside of town, but this year, and even some of last year as we, we were able to host the school’s baccalaureate service for the graduating seniors. Out here at our church, it’s kind of become a, our reputations changing and being, before we were like, oh, Coalition is where Dripping Springs used to be, which is what the church was beforehand. And now it’s more like Coalition Church, it’s such and such as church, they’ll name the person, whoever they relate it to. And, oh, there’s such great people and our youth that come, have started coming on Wednesday, Sunday, Sunday mornings as well. And so they talk about it all the time in school. We have a couple of our youth actually getting baptized tomorrow. So I’m excited.
Laurie Graham 26:09
Wow. Okay. It’s so exciting, and I’m so glad you answered that way because sometimes I ask these questions, and I have no idea, you know, what, what you’re gonna say live on the podcast, but I think the more we see churches, small churches, developing a reputation in their community of being a safe place, of being a loving place, of being a place that meets needs, like it has really just impacted so many people. I’m going to have Pastor Shouse, hopefully on the podcast pretty soon, and he said, yeah, the first time I realized I was a community pastor was somebody saying, that’s my pastor, and I’d never met him. He said, I’d never met this person, and they consider me their pastor. And I think when churches are, you know, that involved that their reputation is not oh, that’s that building, or that’s where so and so goes, or, you know, like you said, that’s that church far away, but when they know us as like being active in their community, and just being a place where needs are met, I just think so much changes. So, Adre, before we run out of time, any last words or any questions you wish I had asked you?
Adre Hurst 27:12
I will, I just want to say this, is that for a small church, nothing, no idea, no thought, no calling, no nothing is too big for you because, like I said before, God will provide whatever need, if he gives you a calling and places are calling on you, God will provide whatever, anything that is needed to fulfill it. No matter how small your community is, no matter if it’s you doing it yourself, but He will take care of any needs that follow.
Laurie Graham 27:45
I love it. Adre thanks for being with us. How can people find out more about Winter Wonderland or your church or reach out to you? What’s the best way?
Adre Hurst 27:53
Um, so Coalition Church has a Facebook page, and that is the way that we tell people. On that, it’s got all of our links, and then I’m on Facebook, you can reach out to me. I’m on, in the, I’m in the Facebook page as well, for the small. Sorry, my brain like, Small Church Community Facebook page, that one. And I’m always willing to talk and answer any questions and get people involved wherever it is needed.
Laurie Graham 28:23
Love it, we’ll be sure to drop the Facebook page, the coalition Facebook page link below so people can just kind of peek in there. I know there will be questions and people will be like, oh, what’d she do and how they do it and all that kind of stuff. So it’s always fun to just let people know how to connect. So Adre, thank you for taking the time and being on the podcast today. It’s just been such a pleasure.
Adre Hurst 28:42
I enjoyed it. Thank you.
Laurie Graham 28:44
Awesome. All right. Well, as we end this episode, everybody, tune in next week for another, just another peek at another church doing amazing things. Small churches all across the globe, not doing things based on their size, but doing things based on what God’s calling us to do. So be a light!
Laurie Graham 0:01
Hey, this is Laurie Graham. Welcome to the Small Church Ministry Podcast.
Laurie Graham 0:14
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Small Church Ministry Podcast. I have a special guest on with us today, Adre Hurst. She’s going to introduce herself in just a minute. But I just want to say this is like, probably the most fun I have with Small Church Ministry is meeting amazing people, not just from across the country, but from around the world, and Adre is one of those people. We put out an open call for speakers for the Christmas conference that we just did. That was all about just less stress and more impact over Christmas, and Adre had turned in this application and she’s like, I just feel like, I just feel really compelled that I need to share this. And so we were so excited to have her as a speaker, but I also wanted her to share with all of you what her church did as an outreach at Christmas time, and not just because of the specific project, but because of her heart behind it and her passion and just like what a church of 100 people can do, and the impact that can be made.
And so as you listen to Adre’s story, I would love for you just to think about like in your small church, what’s unique? Who do you have? Where might God be working? Because if you think there aren’t needs in your community, or even within your state that your church uniquely could meet like, you’re wrong, like you’re just flat out wrong, like there’s so many needs. So I’m just excited to just get to know Adre, a little more in public on the podcast with you all. And so Adre, do you just want to like, tell us a little bit about you first before we jump into this project.
Adre Hurst 1:43
Okay, so my name is Adre. I’m from a church that opened mid-COVID, March of 2021, when the lock downs were kind of lifting, but still kind of heavily in place across the country. It was two of our family churches. So my father-in-law was the pastor of one church, my cousin was the pastor of another church, and we came together during COVID because our conjoining churches kind of, I guess you’d say, died off with the, the pandemic. And so we, this was something that had always been in the works, but it finally came to fruition during COVID and we started the church back in 2021. And I started as the sole kids pastor, and my husband was on a team with youth of youth pastors. And so me and my husband, actually, we had just come back from college, and the end of 20, may 2019. So right before COVID, had started and had our daughter in 2020. So it was kind of a crazy, first couple of years, having a two year old with starting a new church with our family. I’m originally from the state of Texas, so all of everything was just so new to me, and serving and the capacity that we were serving in was a lot as I’m only 25 and I was 22, 23 when we started the new church, I don’t think my math is right, but.
Laurie Graham 3:12
Wow, and tell me about small churches, like because you’re in a small church, you know, 90 to 100 on a Sunday. Did you grow up in small churches? Was the small church experience new to you or?
Adre Hurst 3:24
Kind of. I wasn’t, because I was so young when I left my church back home to come to school in another state. I wasn’t fully involved in all of the crazy craziness of church leadership. But are my I want to say my home church was on average 100 to 150. So on the small side, but they always, they had always kind of, we always had a lot of younger people. So our youth groups were very big, our kids ministry was really big. So all of our events at the church kind of revolved around that. Whereas here when I first started coming to the church before COVID, it was a lot of older people. We had a youth group, and my brother-in-law was the youth pastor at the time, but it was a lot of teenagers that this was the only time they got God, was on Wednesdays, and only if they could get themselves there because we didn’t have a bus ministry at the time either. So kind of starting this, we kind of all started from scratch, restarting the whole church. So it was it was a learning experience. For sure.
Laurie Graham 4:36
Yeah, yeah. Well, I love what you even just said about the difference, you know, two different churches, very different in culture, but the same size and that’s so true of small churches everywhere. There’s so much uniqueness. And so as you share your big idea, your big dream, your big thing that this small church did. I just know it’s going to be inspiring to people because sometimes we think that only big churches do big things, but you guys did a big thing. Do you want to share about it, the Winter Wonderland.
Adre Hurst 5:03
Sure. So it originally started in the Christmas time of 2021, and it was called Milk and Cookies with Santa Claus. So a lady who had just started coming to our church that June, for the home kids camp that we did back out at our land First Ranch. Because we were brand new, we weren’t trying to go to a big kids camp. So she had started coming, and she had started this idea and she came to me as her kids, children’s pastor and was like, this is what we’re wanting to do. I’ve been in contact with the foster community. DHS, I think, is what they call it, in Oklahoma, and they, she found out that the state of Oklahoma didn’t have any Christmas function that was sanctioned and sponsored by DHS itself. So she was, she said that she wanted to change it and would we like to be a part of it?
Laurie Graham 6:06
So meeting the needs of foster kids or foster families at Christmas time, this person in your congregation finds out that the state isn’t doing anything, and could we help? Like that alone is so beautiful to me, like, it’s like, this is where these, I think this is where the best outreach programs, ideas, the best outreaches happen isn’t just, you know, oh, this idea I heard from somebody else, but it’s an actual need that somebody is seeing in your community. So cool. Okay, keep going.
Adre Hurst 6:37
And so the first year, it was really small, because it was, I want to say we put it together in like three weeks. So a local business has what we call their mansion. It’s a pretty big house in the center of a town, the town, and we had a Santa Claus, a Mrs. Claus, we had a cookie decorating station because the lady whose idea this was, that brought it to me trying to get the church involved she, she baked cookies, and that was her, how she made her living. She baked cookies and started doing birthday cakes and stuff for the foster cares’ kids first and then had this idea of this Christmas thing. And she, so we had a cooking decorating, we had presents upstairs, and Mrs. Claus.
Laurie Graham 7:30
Okay, and I’ve got to stop you again. So this is Milk and Cookies with Santa, and so the woman has this idea. There’s a need, and you don’t just start looking online for what they, what other people have done, fhe has this like gift, passion, skill in making cookies. Like, I don’t even know if you’re hearing like how this all fell together, but like that is also so cool, and that’s what we teach, like, what do you, who do you have? What do you have? What is God already provided, and how do you use that, right? Instead of, oh, I found this online, let’s figure out how to make it happen, but looking internally, so, okay, cool. So you’ve got this idea for milk and cookies and foster kids and families, keep going.
Adre Hurst 8:10
Okay, and so that year, the first year that we did it, I think we were able to provide Christmas presents for 100 kids in the city of Sapulpa or, I want to say it was Creek County, which is our local county that we live in, and including the girls home that was in the city, in the town as well. So fast forward a year. It’s like September or October, and we’re talking and planning again and she wants to do it bigger. She wants to get more people. She wants to do it statewide. We were like okay, what can we do? And we had a meeting up stairs in our we call it our war room, which is where all of our scheduling, and our meeting and the praying stuff goes on, and with her and then the local DHS agent, and we decided that we’re going to use our family land that my father-in-law and sister-in-law own, which consists of about 80 acres and a pond. Pond scared me for a minute because of safety issues, but God took care of it. And so we set up a plan and we got to work. We started recruiting businesses, local community businesses that wanted to donate money to the, to it, to be able to put, buy the Christmas lights, and communities wanting to donate things. We had a bookstore. I cannot for the life of me remember what the bookstore is, but donated a lot of Christmas themed books or just educational books to be handed out.
We had several churches coming to us saying that we want to be a part of this, and by us, I mean her and then she would kind of let us know hey, this is what’s going on, and I was in, in all of this, I was kind of her right hand, like you’ve got an idea kind of tell me what you need me to do, who can I communicate this to to get it taken care of. And then we, then the family started signing up, and I want to say that was probably the stressful part, because then it just kind of blossomed to 125 families. And which, looking back on it was over 300 children and went up to like 500 people, but we had churches wanting to bake cookies for us, their schools wanting to bake cookie for, cookies for us, other bakers, like the lady baking cookies for the event, churches coming to grill hot dogs. We ended up separating Mrs. Claus and Miss, Mr. Claus, Santa Claus. And he, so we had a Santa Claus, where they would write a letter to Santa. So we had a letter, kind of a letter mailbox, that was decorated, that was donated, or we found at Lowe’s or something. And so they had letters to Santa decorating thing, and then they would mail the letters to them, to Santa. And then they would go in and meet Santa Claus, take a picture with them, they would get their present and their stocking, and then there was an option to have a storytime with Mrs. Claus.
Adre Hurst 11:33
So kids would go and she’d read them a story. And this wonderful lady reached out to, and is a friend of the original lady’s, and she she was just head over heels with what we were doing and what she had started and what it had become. And so we ended up, I couldn’t even tell you the numbers, my, with the Christmas lights that my father-in-law strong everywhere, if it was a tree, within the set of land that we were using, it had lights on it. And the most, the one thing that I think I enjoyed the most other than the kids because I, as the children’s pastor at heart I kind of, seeing the joy on children’s faces makes me, helps me feel fulfilled. I don’t know how that makes sense, but was the Heroes. It’s a local company that dresses up as superheroes and princesses, and they would go to like hospitals and stuff, but they reached out and wanted to be a part of this. And they came and they dressed up and the kids head over heallls, like that was one of their favorite parts. Not even meeting Santa Claus and getting their presence. And part of what we do as a church is we have a food bank in our town, and there was something we were doing and Salvation Army reached out to us and wanted to donate 50 bikes to give out to the kids during this event. And so that was, I want to say, that was the point where everybody knew that what we’re doing, everybody’s seeing it, and everybody’s seeing the love that God is showing and giving the passion to us for.
Laurie Graham 13:22
Wow. There, there are so many things, and Adre I, you’re telling the story so simply like oh, this just happened and this just happened, but there’s so much brilliance and so much God’s stuff through it. Because again, you started with hey, there’s a need in the foster care community that isn’t being met. Somebody says, I have an idea. What do I have? I have cookies coming to the church and you guys say how can we help? And then her idea gets bigger, and she has this dream, and you don’t say oh, that’s too big for us. You say, what can we do? And like look at how so many other organizations and people got involved. Salvation Army’s giving bikes, another group of Heroes comes up, other churches are joining you, and I want to say, from what you’re saying, I don’t think that was like the master plan, right? Like, all these pieces just kind of kept coming in. Like what do you think of that? Like, how do you think that all happened?
Adre Hurst 14:16
I don’t know. I’ve always had the thought that if you do what God has laid on your heart, no matter how big it is, or how impossible it may seem, God will provide the pieces that are needed. And all the pieces will fit together, and the thing with our church, it’s called Coalition Church, which is the joining together of things and working together. And I think part of it, I’m trying to say this without sounding weird, part of it, I think, is that we, we as a church at Coalition Church as a leadership believe that the big c Church is what matters and our local church is just a tool that God uses. And so, and I think that having that mindset kind of helps. We’re going to do whatever we’re told to do by God, and He will provide what needs to be provided.
Laurie Graham 15:13
You know, I love that. We talk about that so much in Small Church Ministry that our little, local churches we’re just satellites. We’re part of the big Church. And so, you know, your church does this and that church does that, and like, we’ve got all quit copying and trying to duplicate what’s already happening, because you literally found a hole, like a hole in the community of needs that you could step into, and now you’re watching other people get excited for it. So like, I just, I’m so grateful that you’re sharing this, for sure, with all of us. I think it’s really good to wake up to the need in foster communities because I don’t know of any communities who aren’t touched by foster families, although you may ignore them and not know they’re there, they’re there, and there’s a lot of need in the foster community. But there’s also a lot of needs out there that we’re just walking by every day, because every church may not be called to, you know, step into the foster, foster family world. With Winter Wonderland at First Ranch, what, what did you think are the, you know, biggest points of impact for these families? Like what did you see happen with it?
Adre Hurst 16:14
So we, we actually opened Winter Wonderland to not only their foster kids, but also the, their biological family, kids, and because Christmas, during Christmas time, country-wide, we tend to see like a spike in costs and prices. So we were able to provide the gifts for all of their family, and just being able to help take some of that burden off of the of the families as a whole was, I think, the biggest, one of the big impacts, but also just providing a fun, safe, family-friendly environment for these children who don’t have or may not have the greatest life and may not come from, like the ones placed into the foster system may not have a very friendly background. And they may not know what Christmas could look like.
Laurie Graham 17:14
Have you always had a heart for foster families and foster kids?
Adre Hurst 17:19
Me? No. Only because I, I guess I just never paid attention to it, to be honest. And then, so my, my biggest where my heart lies was the special needs children, and we were, and this part I pushed, this year I was able to push for a whole hour where kids with special needs, who needed quiet, who needed a calming-ish environment could have it. And so that’s where my heart had always lied, laid, laid, but kind of opening my eyes to, really, being a part of this has opened my eyes to the community that I work in as a teacher and realizing, or as a para, realizing how many students in our actual school district are in foster care or don’t live with their parents because of X, Y, and Z reasons, it, it has changed my heart towards it.
Laurie Graham 18:23
Wow, that’s so beautiful. Do you think every community has children and families in foster in these types of situations?
Adre Hurst 18:32
Oh, most definitely. I think, at least, it may not be like an official foster care system and our official official foster care family. But I do think that there’s a big possibility that you have kids living with their grandparents, you have families who may have lost their kids to something, a mistake that they had made in the past and they’re living with regret and stuff of not having their kids. I think it’s a, it’s more common than we think, for sure.
Laurie Graham 19:03
Yeah, I think it’s actually one of those areas that small churches can step into and make an incredible impact because when you’re impacting the life of one family or two or in your case 500 or 300 or whatever, you know, like how, how incredible that is because the ripple effect, you know, when we step into some of those community needs are amazing. So I asked you about the impact on the foster families. How about the impact on you? Like being part of this project for the past couple years and stepping into an area that you just said you weren’t even passionate about, you didn’t even know much about the foster, you know, families and, and the needs. How has this, being part of Winter Wonderland, how has this impacted you?
Adre Hurst 19:42
It, it has opened my eyes to a lot of good, but also a lot of bad because I could originally turn my eye to or turn a blind eye to things that maybe didn’t concern me, but when I see it now, or and I know what it is, and just anything from the, seeing the brokenness in the schools with these kids that are in foster care, or they live in the community homes, or they don’t live with their parents, because they live with grandma or grandpa or aunt, uncle, for any reason, and from parents dying to just having to be taken away from them, it has, my heart has always lyed with kids, lot laid with kids ministry, and then focused around that, but I’ve never seen the brokenness that really is there until being a part of this and being able to be a light, and not just, and I don’t mean, sharing the gospel with them, or telling them about Jesus all the time, but just kind of being that friendly, familiar face that they know. Just, it has opened my eyes, but also softened my heart a lot.
Laurie Graham 21:03
Wow, hey, so tell me more about your church and what else you do, because I know this is one project you all do. But what else do you do in your church, and what do you love about your small church?
Adre Hurst 21:12
Okay, so, our church is very much community driven, we’re all about, me and my husband’s favorite saying, as youth pastors is we don’t care where you go to church at, as long as you go to church, but when you’re in our presence, we will show you the love of Jesus, and that’s what we tell our youth, when they’re like, oh, I’m sorry, we can’t be there on Wednesday night, I was invited to this other church. And as much as we would love to have you there, you’re going to church, and I’m not going to complain about that. And so here, we’ve done a couple different things, a couple different years. We, before would have kind of quarterly movie nights for the kids, it would be a family movie night, and not just, we wouldn’t just play like VeggieTales, like we would play a clean, animated, like Disney show, essentially, a movie, just to try and get more families to, kind of come see what our families look like together. And we, our youth have a an annual, we call it Hollyween. It’s Halloween, but we grill, we have a bonfire if it’s cool, and we go to the pumpkin patch that’s about two or three miles from our house. Then they can fish if they want to, on our pond and everything, and we participate in our local trunk or treat Fall Festival thing, which is right around the corner.
Laurie Graham 22:55
It all just keeps coming, right?
Adre Hurst 22:58
And a lot of it is, a lot of it’s community based. Nothing that we do, everything that we do, is based around how we can impact the community I think, and me and my husband volunteering at the school for football, me working at the school, him subbing at the school, our, our pastors all work together, and they own a business and they’ll bring food leftover from the Reach, which is our outreach food bank distribution that we do, to the youth that play football, and kind of help fill the locker, the coach’s office with snacks for them because our kids may not get to eat or the cafeteria runs out of food somehow, and they don’t get to eat before practice. So we have food for them, and, I want to say, this year they’re adding a community worship Christmas Eve nope, not Christmas Eve, we do that every year, New Year’s Eve, there’s the Eve I was looking for. New Year’s Eve worship kind of party, which that’s new. So and we participate in parades. And I think God has actually kind of shown a couple of us of a youth conference that we’re going to be hosting in the next year or so. So.
Laurie Graham 24:31
Oh, I can’t wait to hear more. So you’re not just involved in your community at Christmas time? You and your husband and your church, sounds like, really have a vision for outreach all year long.
Adre Hurst 24:42
Yes.
Laurie Graham 24:42
Yeah. So important with those, just the longer-term relationships. I know a lot of times we try to, you know, small churches try to throw an event here and there and I think what makes the long-term difference is really having those relationships. And have you even seen that your reputation as a church has grown like in your community? Like does your community know you as like the church who helps people?
Adre Hurst 25:03
Yes, I have. So before we were just, when we first started, we were kind of just the church that’s out, far out there on the highway outside of town, but this year, and even some of last year as we, we were able to host the school’s baccalaureate service for the graduating seniors. Out here at our church, it’s kind of become a, our reputations changing and being, before we were like, oh, Coalition is where Dripping Springs used to be, which is what the church was beforehand. And now it’s more like Coalition Church, it’s such and such as church, they’ll name the person, whoever they relate it to. And, oh, there’s such great people and our youth that come, have started coming on Wednesday, Sunday, Sunday mornings as well. And so they talk about it all the time in school. We have a couple of our youth actually getting baptized tomorrow. So I’m excited.
Laurie Graham 26:09
Wow. Okay. It’s so exciting, and I’m so glad you answered that way because sometimes I ask these questions, and I have no idea, you know, what, what you’re gonna say live on the podcast, but I think the more we see churches, small churches, developing a reputation in their community of being a safe place, of being a loving place, of being a place that meets needs, like it has really just impacted so many people. I’m going to have Pastor Shouse, hopefully on the podcast pretty soon, and he said, yeah, the first time I realized I was a community pastor was somebody saying, that’s my pastor, and I’d never met him. He said, I’d never met this person, and they consider me their pastor. And I think when churches are, you know, that involved that their reputation is not oh, that’s that building, or that’s where so and so goes, or, you know, like you said, that’s that church far away, but when they know us as like being active in their community, and just being a place where needs are met, I just think so much changes. So, Adre, before we run out of time, any last words or any questions you wish I had asked you?
Adre Hurst 27:12
I will, I just want to say this, is that for a small church, nothing, no idea, no thought, no calling, no nothing is too big for you because, like I said before, God will provide whatever need, if he gives you a calling and places are calling on you, God will provide whatever, anything that is needed to fulfill it. No matter how small your community is, no matter if it’s you doing it yourself, but He will take care of any needs that follow.
Laurie Graham 27:45
I love it. Adre thanks for being with us. How can people find out more about Winter Wonderland or your church or reach out to you? What’s the best way?
Adre Hurst 27:53
Um, so Coalition Church has a Facebook page, and that is the way that we tell people. On that, it’s got all of our links, and then I’m on Facebook, you can reach out to me. I’m on, in the, I’m in the Facebook page as well, for the small. Sorry, my brain like, Small Church Community Facebook page, that one. And I’m always willing to talk and answer any questions and get people involved wherever it is needed.
Laurie Graham 28:23
Love it, we’ll be sure to drop the Facebook page, the coalition Facebook page link below so people can just kind of peek in there. I know there will be questions and people will be like, oh, what’d she do and how they do it and all that kind of stuff. So it’s always fun to just let people know how to connect. So Adre, thank you for taking the time and being on the podcast today. It’s just been such a pleasure.
Adre Hurst 28:42
I enjoyed it. Thank you.
Laurie Graham 28:44
Awesome. All right. Well, as we end this episode, everybody, tune in next week for another, just another peek at another church doing amazing things. Small churches all across the globe, not doing things based on their size, but doing things based on what God’s calling us to do. So be a light!