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Church without walls uses food truck to drive home Christian mission

Posted on: December 1, 2017 10:19 AM
Volunteers with St Isidore’s Episcopal Church’s Abundant Harvest food truck distribute free meals in early September as part of Hurricane Harvey relief efforts in the Houston, Texas, area.
Photo Credit: Abundant Harvest
Related Categories: church plants, food banks, mission, Texas, USA

[Episcopal News Service, by David Paulsen] It is hard to differentiate the feeding ministry from the work of spiritual enrichment underway at St Isidore’s Episcopal Church. That difficulty is by design. St Isidore’s is a church built without walls but with a set of wheels that allows it to bring faith and food to several small communities of worshippers north of Houston, Texas. Some meet at a Taco Bell or a Panera Bread, others at a laundromat. Central to the mission is the Abundant Harvest food truck, which serves as a focal point for developing Christian relationships while alleviating both physical and spiritual hunger.

“I think people need to be nourished body, mind and soul,” said the Revd Sean Steele, who started St Isidore’s in 2015 as a church plant through Trinity Episcopal Church in The Woodlands, Texas. It now supports eight distinct faith communities totalling about 80 people, as well as its Abundant Harvest ministries. “Feeding and eating is a huge part of everything we do.”

Episcopal News Service caught up with him by phone to conclude its Food and Faith” series on the range of efforts within the Episcopal Church to fight hunger.

  • Click here to read David Paulsen’s full report on the ENS website.