Ministries

The ministry of the Women’s Fellowship is a small group but works to provide a service for our community and world.

The services they provide include working on blankets for Children’s Crisis center, and plan work days, luncheons, Communion and Love Feasts and a National Night Out event.

They also manage Heaven’s Bounty, our local thrift store. The money earned from Heaven’s Bounty enable to donate to 15 charities. It also funded additional food for our food pantry.

The Empire Church of the Brethren has a Food Pantry that distributes food to anyone in need once a week on Tuesdays from 9 AM to 12 PM. We are a distribution site for the Emergency Food Assistance Program administered by The Salvation Army in Modesto California. There is a variety of food given out that attempts to cover the nutritional needs of the recipients. All that is required is your name and the city in which you live plus the country in which you reside. People can come for food each week. New food for the month comes on the first Wednesday of the month on which we also distribute food for those in need. We also accept donations and can add any donations to the food that we receive from The Salvation Army for this program. People who come for assistance tell us that it is a significant help for them in their food needs. It is a ministry to the community of Empire, Hughson and Waterford. We turn no one away no matter where they live. But we are asked to give them a site near to where they live. It has been a good way to get acquainted with our community.

Empire Church of the Brethren offers Friday Fellowship the 1^st and 3^rd Fridays of each month for members, family and friends. The 1^st Friday is a lunch catered by Pam Franklin. We gather in the church hall at 11:30am and enjoy an entrée, salad and desert. A $5.00 donation covers the cost of the food. Sometimes there are games after. The 3^rd Friday we dine out at various suggested places. Come join us, we would love to Fellowship with you!

In early 2026, the Empire church started to make plans to revamp the youth program. The leadership group of Lois & Lindy Frantz, Susan & Joel Price, and Jay Irizarry created ideas to do so. The first event that was planned and took place in April was the Youth Group reunion, in which the leadership called upon the old youth group and invite them to a dinner at the church. The then leadership took another step forward to plan a Youth Game Night where youth and adults played different games including Jenga, Connect 4, Checkers and other games. Towards the end of the evening, the youth came together with a game and story session led by Susan Price. Along with games, the Youth Game Night included dinner as everyone was treated to super nachos, was a success. The Youth Group leadership will start planning out what’s next for 2027. And hopefully, our revamped ministry will bring together more youth in our community to participate in our upcoming events.