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A CHURCH WITH A HEART FOR KANSAS CITY
Pastor Darron Edwards is partnering with Prison Fellowship Angel Tree to reach the least, the lost, and the left out in Kansas City
When Darron Edwards moved from the small town of Waxahachie, Texas, to Kansas City, Missouri, in 2000, he believed he was following God's calling. He felt like Abram in the book of Genesis, headed to an unfamiliar place.
Darron had been recruited to become the new pastor of United Believers Community Church—a small fellowship barely two years old. Although he faced some situations that made him question whether he was in the right place, the church eventually thrived. Within 10 years, the growing congregation expanded to a new facility in an area called Hickman Mills on the south side of Kansas City.
As he settled into the new neighborhood, Darron began to take an interest in the needs of the surrounding community, where 36% of children live below the poverty line. He eventually rallied his United Believers congregation to adopt a local elementary school, Ingels Elementary.
THE LEAST, THE LOST, THE LEFT OUT
“We ended up adopting the poorest school in the poorest district in our city,” Darron recalls. “From that engagement … we found out that 33% of the kids who attended that school had an incarcerated parent.”
Upon hearing this shocking statistic, Darron thought of Prison Fellowship Angel Tree®, a program he and his family had supported for years. Angel Tree mobilizes churches to provide Christmas gifts, summer camp sponsorships, and other opportunities to the children of prisoners across the country.
“Since 1996, I've been a supporter of Angel Tree,” says Darron. “I wanted to raise my kids around the whole issue of generosity and understanding that it's more blessed to give than it is to receive. Because God has afforded us a sense of abundant living … we wanted to pour it back into the least, the lost, and the left out.”
Seeing the need at Ingels Elementary motivated Edwards to get his entire church involved in what had previously been a family Christmas tradition. United Believers Community Church signed up for Angel Tree Christmas and began buying and delivering Christmas presents to local children who had a parent behind bars.
“We started off small with 25 to 30 kids,” Darron says. “Now over 300 children are part of our fellowship.”
GOING BEYOND CHRISTMAS
As the United Believers volunteers began to build relationships with Angel Tree families in their community, they discovered many more ways to offer support.
“We've learned to listen to them,” Darron says. “We've done many wraparound services over the years to make sure that we don't just do Angel Tree Christmas, but we engage with these children all year long.”
United Believers Community Church offers many resources, including a food bank, donated clothing, and free mental health therapy sessions.
The church even stepped in to help Ingels Elementary solve practical problems keeping some children from regularly attending school.
“The principal of the school met with me and said, ‘Pastor Edwards, attendance is low because of two things,'” Darron recalls. “What the principal said blew me away: ‘Kids didn't come to school because they didn't have materials, and … because they didn't want to wear dirty clothes.’”
United Believers responded to this need by purchasing washers and dryers for the school to offer a place for students' clothes to be cleaned. The church also set up a year-round resource closet at the school where any child can obtain free school supplies.
“What we discovered is that Angel Tree has to be bigger than Christmas,” says Darron. “There are needs all year long, and when churches find out how to get involved, and they have a heart for those in need … That's our mission, and when we get back to that mission, I really believe that we'll see a change in our world that we've yet to see.”

"There are needs all year long, and when churches find out how to get involved, I really believe we'll see a change in our world that we've yet to see."
—Darron
A COMMUNITY OF GENEROSITY
One of the things that most excites Pastor Darron is watching his congregation develop into “a community of generosity.” As members of his church get more involved in the community, it has excited younger congregants who are eager to put their faith into action.
“Some of my millennials and some of my Gen Zers, they say: ‘This is what we've been waiting on. We've been waiting to do the Gospel. We hear the Gospel, we sing the Gospel, we preach the Gospel, but now we're doing the Gospel.’”
This excitement has translated into growth for United Believers. Attendance has steadily climbed as people are attracted to the mission of serving the “least, the lost, and the left out.”
“We've had people who've been incarcerated who are [now] volunteers,” Darron says. “And we've had people from the community say, ‘You guys are a real church. I want to be a part of a real church that's meeting needs.’”
A CHURCH ONLY HAS TO HAVE THE HEART
Darron is quick to express his appreciation for Prison Fellowship® as a ministry partner. Through this partnership, the church was able to serve as a host for an Angel Tree sports camp in Kansas City’s Hy-Vee Arena that served hundreds of local children.
“We never thought we would do a sports camp. We never thought that we would rent out the Hy-Vee Arena. We never thought we would have WNBA stars come out to lead the camps. We never thought we'd give away over 200 pairs of brand-new shoes and swag bags and balls, and gifts," says Darron. "Well, that's the partnership of Prison Fellowship. We just supplied the volunteers. We just supplied the love. [Prison Fellowship] supplied the resources, and it happened to the glory of God.”
By partnering with Prison Fellowship Angel Tree, United Believers Community Church has multiplied its impact and extended its reach in Kansas City—the once-unfamiliar city Darron moved to more than two decades ago.
As this congregation shares God’s love with their community in practical ways, lives are being transformed.
“A church only has to have the heart," Darron says. "And when you have a heart for people, and you have an agency like Angel Tree, who'll give you the tools, it can save communities.”

By partnering with Prison Fellowship Angel Tree, United Believers Community Church has multiplied its impact and extended its reach in Kansas City—the once-unfamiliar city Darron moved to more than two decades ago.