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Berean is the recipient of the North American region's 2009 Innovative Church of the Year award for reinventing its role in the community.

Through job fairs, weekly community food and clothing distributions, Habitat for Humanity projects, and block-party style evangelism, the Atlanta-Berean Seventh-day Adventist Church has significantly grown its membership and tithe returns, church leaders said.

Sabbath services now draw more than 2,000 worshippers and tithe has grown from $1.5 million in 2006 to a projected $3 million for 2009, the church reported.

Church leaders are crediting the results to Atlanta-Berean's deliberate push to move ministry beyond the church pews in recent years. The church, led by Pastor Carlton Byrd, moved from "one focused largely on the needs of Adventists to a community-oriented church," said Dave Gemmell, associate director of the North American region's Church Resource Center.

The resource center presents the award annually at the National Conference on Innovation, which is designed to encourage and support renewal though innovative ministry among Adventist churches in the United States, Canada and Bermuda, Gemmell said.

"Most everything we do in church began as an innovation," Gemmell said. "We need to continue to innovate and update because the world is constantly changing."

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