For nearly two decades, Bellevue members have pulled weeds, repaired roofs, prayed with neighbors, and evangelized door to door, but recently, Missions Ministry started asking a deeper question: How can we equip people to serve in a way that goes beyond Bellevue Loves Memphis and creates a lasting, Christ-centered heart to serve?
“As we’ve been looking at what we feel like our purpose is within our ministry’s mission statement—‘to equip our members to engage in the missionary task’—we’ve realized we have a lot of ways for people to engage, but not many that equip them for that engagement,” Taylor Rivera, Bellevue’s Local Missions Director said.
So this year’s Bellevue Loves Memphis looked a little different. At the morning rally, the Missions team offered eight different training sessions for nearly 600 volunteers. All the service projects were split up between the trainings, and volunteers heard from an expert in their project’s specific mission field. This prepared the volunteers for opportunities to step into conversations with people of different demographics throughout our city, like those who struggle with homelessness, addiction, trauma, or disabilities, and how to do so with confidence and care.
“Sometimes it’s intimidating when you’re interacting with something unknown,” Taylor said. “We wanted to set the volunteers up for success to know, ‘OK, this is how I start the conversation,’ because I think a big reason people don’t engage is because they don’t know how to, not because they don’t want to.”
Once the volunteers had attended their specific training, 33 teams were sent across Memphis to serve ministries who care for refugees, widows, orphans, and other vulnerable groups in our city. By the end of the day, 39 people made professions of faith.
“We hope those decisions lead to discipleship and connection with a local church,” Taylor said. “Because that’s really the point—not just doing good, but doing good to lead people to Jesus.”
Through Bellevue Loves Memphis, volunteers learned what it looked like to be sent—not just for a day, but every day. It’s about moving beyond a to-do list and into people’s lives by developing genuine relationships, listening to needs, and offering consistent support.
“The heart behind Bellevue Loves Memphis is that it wouldn’t just be, ‘I’m going to do Bellevue Loves Memphis and that’s it,’ but that it would be a catalyst for someone responding to their purpose to glorify God every day,” Taylor said. “There are people right here in our city that don’t know Jesus, and there are people that maybe have heard of Jesus but don’t know the hope of the Gospel and the freedom it brings. And so missions starts close. It starts here.”
To find out how you can serve year-round with Bellevue, visit bellevue.org/pathways.