Church Member Story: Millgrove Baptist Church

Millgrove Baptist Church is a Church Member of LinC Yarra Valley and provides one of our five weekly social supermarkets.

Millgrove Baptist Church has been serving  the community since their establishment in 1963. The purpose of Millgrove Baptist Church is to love and worship God and, led by the Holy Spirit, be a caring family where all are growing into Christian maturity, being equipped for lives of ministry and committed to seeing all people reconciled to God through Jesus Christ.

A Typical Friday

Have you ever wondered what a day in the life of one of our social supermarket team members looks like? Read on to learn about a typical day from the perspective of Ray McDonald, Senior Pastor at Millgrove Baptist Church.

7:00am Each Friday morning starts when Lindsay opens the side door of the Church, the heaters or coolers are put on, the morning tea provided for customers, the church is set up to become a pleasant comfortable area to socialise with old or newfound friends. The regular volunteers drift in as their personal lives allow.

7:30-8:15 The Truck from SecondBite arrives; Neil our delivery man gets out of his cabin after an hour or so in the truck and does his routine exercises. All hands are on deck to offload the fruit and vegetables.

9:30am Alice and Jack welcome our customers as they arrive. Tickets are collected, Cuppa’s are made. Every second Friday the Yarra Ranges Mobile Library’s van turns up with a load of books for borrowing.

Around 10am Volunteers meet to check out the issues of the day and say a prayer. The deliveries are loaded and Peter and Tim, one by one, drop a box of fruit and vegetables along with a smile and a ‘How do you do?’ to 10 people around Millgrove.  Elizabeth, our friendly self-appointed Book Exchange person, sets up her stand and brings her friendly chatter.

Will and Donna, pull up in their station wagon and offload their recovered bread and rolls from a Yarra Valley Bakery. Will always has a joke and a friendly grin to our customers who are waiting.

We have Mums and Dads, singles, blokes that are there really just wanting a chat, older couples – some are on social services, others are pensioners struggling to make ends meet.

At 10:30am sharp Jack commences calling people’s numbers and our customers wander through choosing their fruit and veggies for the week and chatter with our workers as they go.

By 11:15am most of our people are through. My Truck is loaded with any food remaining – this includes apples for the Wesburn Primary School – if we have them. By now Dean has arrived to pick up and sort the overripe fruit and wilting veggies – which are a gift to his pet ‘Deer’ He loves overripe bananas (The Deer not Dean)

Our volunteers clean and return everything for preparation for the coming Sunday before returning home.

12 noon unwanted cartons go to the Wesburn Recycling Centre, who kindly allow us to fill their bin at no cost to us.

12:15pm Jack and I make deliveries to families in homes associated with Benwerren Holiday home for Women

12:30pm The Truck pulls up outside Benwerren and the Cook of the day checks out our goodies and selects what they can use to supply food to their guests.

1:00pm Any remaining food is delivered to the Yarra Junction Social Supermarket, loaded into trolleys and added to their program. Jack and I go home. 

The Day is done for another week!

The Impact of the Social Supermarket

Fresh vegetables and fruit and other food is distributed to people in the community every Friday at 10.30am at Millgrove Baptist Church, 4 Cavanagh Grove, Millgrove. This has proved to be immensely popular and of great benefit for many of our locals. It has also opened opportunities for the church to assist members of our community financially, emotionally, and spiritually.

Struggling to put food on your table? See you on Friday?

Millgrove Baptist Church

Every Sunday we meet at 10am for the church service. This is a bright and meaningful Worship time, with singing, Bible readings, and preaching from the Bible. Many subjects are explored by the preaching team consisting of  Senior Pastor Ray McDonald, Associate Pastor Margaret Bastian,  Brigitte McDonald, Rev. Dr. Val Billingham and Mark Knoll (Deacon).

Communion is celebrated on the first Sunday of each month, as we give God thanks for Christ’s sacrifice for all people. As a Baptist Church we promote believer’s baptism.