Feeding 5,000 as ‘blessing to our town’

By Carol Stender

Members of the Christian Fellowship Church of Detroit Lakes area served more than 5,000 meals, and didn’t collect an offering. The meal was just given as a blessing to the people in the Detroit Lakes area. Contributed photo

Feeding the 5,000 is not just a Biblical account. Members of Christian Fellowship Church in Detroit Lakes have done it twice and, while they aren’t sure, they have plans to do it again with other congregations in the community.

The meals are a way the church can bless the community, said Tim Rice, pastor of Christian Fellowship Church. 

It started nine years ago in 2015 when a church member said he wanted to provide a meal for the community.

“I want it to be good food,” he said. “I want it to be nutritious and to feed the 5,000.”

The church had never embarked on such a project in the past, but set a plan in motion.

While Jesus fed 5,000 men besides women and children using two fish and five loaves of bread (Matthew 14), the Detroit Lakes congregation developed a different menu -- hot dogs, hamburgers, brats, chips, cookies, cupcakes, pop and water. The church purchased it all. There would be no charge for the meal nor would they accept donations.

“This is our blessing to the town,” Rice said.

One woman said she would make 1,500 homemade cupcakes.

“They weren’t just homemade,” Rice said, “they were decorated, too.”

Another lady said she could do 1,500 more and, yet another one stepped forward with more. There were nearly 5,000 cupcakes served with the meal, Rice said.

Jesus fed the 5,000 at one meal, but Christian Fellowship Church expanded the offering over an almost six-day period. Starting on a Monday morning at 10 a.m. until 7 p.m., members served the meals. They did the same over the next five days and served 5,200 meals.

Last year, Rice felt prompted that the church should have another “Feed the 5,000” event. He made an announcement during a church service calling for anyone interested in helping to plan the event to attend a meeting. He didn’t expect a crowd and set out eight chairs for the gathering. He had just finished making copies of the meeting agenda when he entered the meeting room. Rice was pleasantly surprised to see 22 people representing five churches ready to make the plans.

“I don’t know how the other four churches found out about the meeting,” he said, “but it was an amazing time.” 

Several churches participated in 2023 -- Harvest Church in Frazee and, from Detroit Lakes, Lakes Area Mennonite, Strawberry Lake Mennonite, Pinewood Chapel and Christian Fellowship Church.

They didn’t seek donations from businesses.

“One thing that was on my heart was I didn’t want to tax businesses,” he said. “I didn’t want to put up signs that said who donated this or that. We want to impart God’s favor (that is the definition of bless) on our community and in doing that, I didn’t want to be a stress to anyone. God is big enough.”

Volunteers unload a truck with more drinks served with the meals they gave out to the community. More than 5,000 meals were distributed. Contributed photo

Businesses wanted to help regardless. Someone arrived with cherries -- 60 pallets worth with each pallet containing 10 pounds of cherries. Anyone receiving a meal got a one pound bag of the delicious fruit.

Daggett Trucking donated the use of a reefer truck and Cenex offered propane for the grills. Costco provided a pallet of water. And there were others that helped to make the meal a reality once more.

The churches set up a prayer tent on the property. There was no preaching at the event, but several who attended the meal approached church members with prayer requests. Some sought prayer for sick family members or resolution to a family or work problem.

There were eight people who committed their lives to Christ and several Bibles were given out, he said.

The five churches all assisted with preparing and serving the food, but like the food donations, others showed up to help, including Rice’s sister and her husband from Hibbing.

Like the first meal, no one paid for their meal and donations were not accepted. Some found that hard to believe.  One man asked where the donation bucket was only to be told there wasn’t any.

“There’s always a donation bucket,” he said. 

The man went further in the line and asked again about the donation bucket. 

“I have a bucket,” said one of the servers. “But this is a bucket of potato salad. There is no donation bucket.” 

That’s the blessing of God, Rice said. “It’s confusing to people We didn’t accept any type of an offering.” 

One man pulled into the parking lot last year and said his entire family had COVID. The group prepared seven meals for him.

“We were able to bless people in that way,” Rice said. “It was amazing to see how, at some level, we are meeting the need for some people.”

One resident said he enjoyed the community meals saying they are like a family reunion and high school reunion and community reunion as people come together for the meal.

“For him it wasn’t about the burger, but about the fellowship,” Rice said.

When a youth pastor from Montana stopped at the meal last year, he had his wife and 13 youth from his church in tow. The group was doing local mission work. Rice heard the youth pastor tell the group they could do the same thing when they got home to Montana.

And there were others. He learned that a group from Staples planned to do the same and another group from Brainerd prepared 1,000 meals for law enforcement and first responders in their community.

This poster/graph shows how many meals were served after the first two days. They would eventually go over 5,000 meals. Contributed photo

“I know it blessed them,” he said. “That was the hope that others would be blessed and be a blessing.”

He doesn’t know how to answer people who ask how it started out and how it became a success.

“If our heart is right and we want to bless people, then God honors that,” he said.

Rice is originally from Hibbing and has been a pastor for 15 years. He has been contacted by other pastors with smaller congregations wanting to do something similar to Christian Fellowship Church’s meal.

One pastor had a small congregation of 30 to 40 people. He didn’t think he could pull it off, Rice said. “You don’t have to do this, but what would it take to bless your community?” He told the minister. “If you want to pull out a grill in the park during the town parade, you might have 50 people come by but you  bless them. It can open up a conversation that God is out there and he cares.”

And it’s not just a meal that can show care and blessing, he said. It’s something everyone can do.

“Maybe its help with lawn cutting or shoveling snow or maybe it’s feeding the 5,000,” Rice said.  “Just do something.”