Members of Carolina Baptist Church are in the middle of a mission trip – across town.

The church group has spent most of this week concentrating the efforts they would usually put toward work overseas, or elsewhere in the country, to work right here in Covington County.

Kelley Garner said the church has gone on a traditional mission trip for the last seven years, but a hiccup in this year’s process led the congregation to try something new.

“Some of our efforts for our mission trip got redirected this year,” Garner said. “So instead, we decided to focus on our own community.”

CBC Pastor Keith Tankersley said the church picked out a neighborhood on Ala. Hwy. 55 and sort of set up shop for the week.

“Our church bus picks up a lot of kids in this area,” Tankersley said. “So, we’ve just been out cutting grass for people. We have been packing backpacks for back to school. Today we are giving out clothes to people who need it, kind of like a yard sale, but they just pick what they want.”

Tankersley said the new way of looking at a missions “trip” is one he’s glad the church chose.

“It’s what God wanted us to do this year,” he said. “We’re reaching out to every demographic with every demographic of our church. We have youth involved and we have seniors cooking or helping with the young kids.”

Tankersley also said the new outreach program is indicative of the message the church wants to send to its community.

“We’re working on a new sign for the church that says, ‘broken hearts and blue jeans welcome,’” he said. “We want anyone and everyone to come.”