LAKEHURST – For a church that hasn’t opened yet, officially, they sure have been busy serving as a proving ground for community support during the current COVID-19 pandemic.
Members of the Proving Ground Church gathered late in the afternoon of Aug. 7 to assemble and arrange items for a special flea market. They didn’t have to worry, however, about marking prices on any of the items – they were all offered up for free as a means to help the community during the ongoing pandemic which has hit hard financially for many people.
This wasn’t the first charity undertaking by the church based on 1 Proving Ground Rd. In April they provided free pantry care packages and more than a generous serving of hope to Lakehurst residents and people in the area in need.
Proving Ground Church Administrative Asst. Nicole LeBoeuf said of the event that due to the potential for rain, the flea market was moved indoors as a precaution. “We set up inside so we didn’t have to worry about the rain. We are following all the safety protocols with masks and social distancing inside the building.”
LeBoeuf added, “we’ve been having Friday night events. We started two weeks ago so that we could meet the community. We had a family game night and last week we had a magic show. Today is the flea market and next week we will have an outdoor movie and then we will have another family game night event.”
Also in the works is a classic rock concert and a country music concert, LeBoeuf added. She was among around 15 people who helped arrange the interior of the church hall with a large variety of donated items for the flea market about 90 minutes prior to the start of the event.
They rotated the number of people inside to maintain social distancing. “We will move some of our volunteers outside to make room for customers inside,” she said.
“We have been trying to find ways to help the community and one of our team members said why don’t we have a flea market but not really sell anything we’ll just give it away and so we started seeking out gently used donations and it turns out everybody has stuff because it turns out the veterans groups aren’t collecting anymore and a lot of groups that you would normally donate things to are closed,” she said.
She added that the church wanted to wait for a safer time to do that and they are encouraging people to wash things as they take them home because they weren’t from their house originally.
While the church hasn’t officially opened it plans to do so, pandemic permitting, on Sept. 6. “We may start with an online service and see how it goes but if possible we may start with 100 people in the building if that is permitted at the time. Right now we aren’t making a definitive plan until we hear more from the governor.
“Things change very rapidly. We are doing what we can,” LeBoeuf said.
Pastor Nick Daleo, Lead Pastor of Proving Ground Church said in the spring that he “had planned to reach out to community leaders and groups beforehand so that we could learn what the needs of the community are and be better able to come along side and serve them.”
The church is an extension of Bayside Chapel, located in Barnegat. The Bayside Chapel purchased the church facility located on Proving Ground Road, that served as the previous home to the Ocean County Evangelical Free Church.
At that time the church was starting renovations to the building when the coronavirus policies went into effect. “My leadership team and I wanted to serve now in such a difficult time.”
The pastor noted how challenging the situation has been. “How are we going to reach out to a community that we technically can’t physically reach out to? We feel really strongly that we are still supposed to open these doors so we hope to open on Labor Day weekend.”
“The idea is to reach out to the community and let them know we are here to serve them. This was another one of those ideas and events that we could do and keep social distancing in place and keeping safe,” Pastor Daleo said.
He said he was very happy with the turnout of the recent Friday night family events. “We’ve also had the fire department involved in coming out with fire trucks and we bought the rights to a Disney movie for next week on a 20-foot screen but we’ll be keeping a social distancing space.”
The Friday movie events start around 8 p.m. for gathering and the film usually starts a half hour later. “People set up with lawn chairs and blankets and we have popcorn and stuff like that. It becomes a fun family movie night,” the pastor added.
He noted that the two upcoming concerts were also free. “We want to get back to the roots that churches used to be which is to serve the community they are in. If people are in trouble or in need the church becomes the place to go which is what the church was originally designed for.
“We meet new families each week and many have said there are churches all over the area but we haven’t seen anyone doing this,” he added.
Those interested in attending or assisting with the upcoming events of the church can visit their website at provinggroundchurch.com.
