150 Pair Donated During Service in Georgia

Churchgoers at Connect Rome in Rome, GA were asked to do something different Sunday morning.

Josh Roberts, pastor of the church that meets in the barroom of McCrobie’s downtown, not only asked his parishioners to leap into a relationship with God, but also to leap out of their shoes for a good cause.

Many of those in attendance were surprised when Roberts asked them to leave the shoes they wore to church, but gave them up without question. The church collected 150 pairs of shoes to donate.

“Josh wanted to use the message and make it where everyone could apply it to real life this morning,” said Robert’s new assistant Jeannene Parsons.

The shoes would be sent to a Soles4Souls warehouse where they would be sorted and shipped across the nation to people in need.

“They have three different warehouses, two of which are in Alabama and Tennessee,” Parsons said. “So we’ll be shipping the shoes out to the Alabama warehouse.”

Berry College junior Joseph Cook said he was happy to have given up his footwear. He donated the pair of Rainbow flip-flops he normally wears to church.

“They were just shoes,” he said. “They’re kind of hard to give up, but they weren’t my shoes to give in the first place. They were God’s shoes.”

Read Pastor Josh's blog on the donation here.