Flea Market Is A Way For Church To Spread Word About Its Mission

Dawn and Paul Tintinalli of Plumsted stand beside their bird house creations during a recent flea market held at the De Bows United Methodist Church in Jackson Township. (Photo by Bob Vosseller)

  JACKSON – Music, crafts, and a variety of wares on sale made De Bows United Methodist Church’s annual flea market a fun fall event.

  The Libby Prison Minstrels performed during the day providing musical intervals for browsers at the event. The overcast autumn day brought a number of shoppers to the church property at 509 Monmouth Road.

  Pastor Denise Tiedemann said “we do this twice a year. We do one in the summer and one in the fall. It’s a good day. My husband warned me don’t come home with more stuff.”

  “We do a lot of mission work here. Primarily, our biggest mission is our food pantry. It is the second and fourth Monday nights every month from 6 to 8 p.m. That is for anyone who has the need. They can call the number that is on our website debowsumc.org and schedule an appointment. It is a drive by model due to COVID pandemic,” the pastor added.

  She said people schedule an appointment “and we run out and put food in their car. We’ve worked hard to keep that going during the pandemic.”

  Pastor Tiedemann said the pandemic has been a challenge for the church and other organizations. “I think every church has felt that. We all had to shut down initially and just be creative with how to open worship up as much as we can. Last summer we began doing outdoor worship services and now we’re back indoors.”

  “The banjo player of the Libby Prison Minstrels is a member of our church and they are popular. It is a smaller older church but the folks love coming here,” Pastor Tiedemann said.

Members of the Libby Prison Minstrels sing “Oh Susanna” during one of several performances at the De Bows United Methodist Church Flea Market held earlier this month. (Photo by Bob Vosseller)

  “The church is about 125 years old. We do a lot of work supporting the United Methodist Committee On Relief, that is a Methodist global mission where we help wherever there is a disaster and we get a lot of support for that mission,” she said.

  She said the church has “an excellent music ministry. The Libby Prison Minstrels play here often and we have a great praise band that plays once a month. On the last Sunday of the month, we play a lot of older hymns and music so that is a lot of fun to.”

  “We do mission work with the Children’s Home Society. We collect toys and take part in Operation Christmas Child. It is a very small but vibrant church is the best way I would describe it. We are very welcoming,” the pastor added.

  Among the tables were everything from desk chairs, to various holiday items to DVDs and CDs. A couple from nearby Plumsted Township had home made bird houses – many of which featured a holiday theme.

  “We’ve been doing this since the COVID lock down. We needed something to do as we are both working from home and as we couldn’t go anywhere, we thought we’d start some crafting projects and this is what it turned into,” Dawn Tintinalli said.

  “I love doing it. We’ve sold quite a few of them. They are hand painted and can be used indoor or outdoor. They are sprayed with acrylic paints and all and we have all the themes and seasons, Christmas, Halloween, fall, Easter. It gave us something to do as a nice creative outlet,” she added.

A variety of items were available for purchase at the Fall Flea Market held at De Bows United Methodist Church in Jackson. (Photo by Bob Vosseller)

  Tintinalli said she and her husband Paul were not members of the church but happened to stop by the church’s spring flea market and saw the crowd. “We came as buyers and they said look for us in October so we said alright let’s bring our crafts and see how we do.”

  Event organizer Sue Hayward has been a member of the church since 1979. “The flea market used to be once a year but now we decided to do it again and it’s worked out well. We get a lot of people from around the area and from Jackson itself.”