News-Record.com

I don't know that I would have found Westside Fellowship Church, a church of about 200 members, meeting in an elementary school gymnasium/auditorium, had it not been for the work it has done with Hurricane Katrina survivors. It's not a church with a press release for everything it does.

Here's food for thought from pastor Mike Mitchener, whose congregation's work is at the heart of a multi-community effort to help displaced Katrina survivors (Check out Monday's front page for "The Little Church that Could."):

"Jesus said if you give a cold cup of water in my name you will not lose your reward," said Mitchener, a volunteer football coach at Western Alamance High School. "Jesus was saying if you give a cup of cold water in my name it will not go unnoticed. If he's keeping up with the cold water, he's counting cups and mattresses and forks and everything.

"Jesus also said, 'If you see a need and you have the ability to meet that need and you don't meet it, then shame on you -- that's the Mike Mitchener paraphrase," the pastor told me recently.