Raising ‘Chickens for Jesus’
South Carolina congregation partners with the Presbyterian Giving Catalog to improve the lives and livelihoods of families around the world
LOUISVILLE – From the suburbs of South Carolina to the sandy shores of Saint John in the Caribbean, children everywhere are raising the refrain.
“Chickens for Jesus!”
The catchy ditty was coined after Robin Bell and Debbie Clapp, both charter members of Providence Presbyterian Church in Foothills Presbytery, wondered what more their small membership congregation in Powdersville, South Carolina, could do for the sake of the gospel.
Bell explained that although the church already actively partners with several community organizations and a local elementary school to support their neighbors in need through a variety of outreach and programmatic ministries, they also wanted “to make some type of global contribution.”
That’s how “Chickens for Jesus” was hatched.
“We are a small church with only a few that come to morning Sunday school,” said Bell, a retired health care professional and ruling elder who serves on the mission committee. “Our combined class ranges in age from 10 to 80.”
Clapp, a retired nurse who led the Sunday school class with her husband Lewis for years before recently stepping down, said she loves to watch the different ages as they engage with the lesson and one another.
“You get a wide variety of opinions on what’s going on in their lives,” she said. “The young people like to see the adults laughing and cutting up and enjoying one another, even though we don’t always agree.”
But one thing the class and the congregation could all agree on was the good that chickens can do in the world, which is why they turned to the Presbyterian Giving Catalog.
Now in its 12th year, the Presbyterian Giving Catalog is filled with a wide variety of gifts — including a Family of Chickens — that provide real and positive impact around the world. For ease of use, the Giving Catalog is available both in print and online, in English, Spanish and Korean. The 2024-2025 Giving Catalog offers a total of 45 items — large, small and in between — to fit every congregation’s missional interests and every individual’s budget.
“For our first experience working with the Giving Catalog, we decided that raising money for chickens would be an achievable goal for our Sunday School class,” Bell said. “We had this huge jar and invited everyone to put in whatever change they had. We put it out during World Communion Sunday and during our church ‘Trunk R Treat’ last year. Even our church’s preschool got involved by dressing up as ‘Old MacDonald’s Farm’ and bringing live chickens to the event.”
Both Bell and Clapp emphasized the importance of the church’s preschool in the life of the congregation.
“Although most of the preschool families go to other churches, they are always involved in the things we offer them,” said Clapp, “and they do all of their programs at our church. We actually feel like we have an impact on their lives. Seeing the children dressed up at the ‘Trunk R Treat’ with their live chickens made people sit up and take notice and want to give without even being prompted.”
“We feel very proud of what we have accomplished as a small congregation,” added Bell.
Clapp noted that whenever people gave generously, they were always mindful of the impact their gift of chickens would have.
“We thought about the mothers that these chickens would go to,” said Clapp. “With chickens, they get eggs, or they can raise chickens for food. Chickens help these mothers have their own way to make a living.”
But Clapp — whose family actually coined the phrase, “Chickens for Jesus” — said the class focused not only on the what but also on the why of chickens.
“Why are we doing this, we asked ourselves,” she said of the mission project which the church plans to continue throughout 2025, having raised a total of $250 in 2023 and $275 in 2024. “Well, we’re raising ‘Chickens for Jesus.’ We’re spreading the word about Jesus. Hopefully everyone will know they’re coming from a place of love.”
And that “place of love” now extends to the U.S. Virgin Islands, thanks to Clapp’s nephew, niece and their two children on Saint John.
“Where they live, there are corrals where people gather up the chickens who roam the island,” said Clapp. “Once when they were driving by, the seven- and the four-year-old started singing a song about 'Chickens for Jesus,' so there’s no telling how many chickens are spreading the word!”
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