One of our strongest commitments in ministry and mission at Central United Methodist Church is to serve those who are poor and struggling in life. In our community, we have partnered on several levels with the Atlantic City Rescue Mission that serves as a beacon of hope to the homeless and near homeless in Atlantic City.

The Mission is a nonprofit, Christian social service ministry helping the poor and homeless in southern New Jersey since 1964. People who have no home receive practical help, counseling, and Christian compassion. Through effective, innovative, Christian-based recovery programs, people are brought from despair into a productive, good quality of life within the community.

Our ministry with the mission includes providing regular donations of goods and clothing to the men and women of the street. In addition, people from our church give their time in service to the mission working on rehabilitating the building, serving on advisory boards, helping in the kitchen, and taking on the challenges that a busy mission like the Atlantic City Rescue Mission faces every day.

The Atlantic City Rescue Mission was our first partner in our 'Church Outside the Church' ministry where a ministry team from our church leads worship services for those living at the Mission. On the third and fourth Sundays of every month, a team led by our Associate Pastor goes to the Mission to make sure that there is a 'church service' for these men and women that includes music that praises God, prayer, a Bible-based sermon, and fellowship. At the conclusion of every worship service our pastor anoints anyone wishing to be anointed with healing oil and we regularly include a service of Holy Communion. Our ministry team members have included youth, teenagers, young adults, and senior citizens. To a person they each say that they get more out of being in 'church' at the Mission than they give back to those who worship with us there.

Central United Methodist Church has heard the call of God to serve and be in mission to the Atlantic City Rescue Mission, which is set apart by the Spirit of God to preach the Gospel and meet the physical, emotional and other basic needs (through the provision of shelter, clothing, food, counseling, referral, and structured programs) of the poor and those who are bound and bruised by addictive lifestyles in Atlantic City and the surrounding communities.