October 21, 2024
PORT CANAVERAL, Fla. — Ingleside Baptist Church in Macon, Ga, supports a unique ministry in neighboring Florida. Canaveral Port Ministry is a ministry that serves seafarers (workers on cruise ships) when they are in port. Over the course of a typical week, the ministry will serve more than 2,000 visitors from 70+ countries. As they say, “reaching the world from our doorstep.”
In 2022, Port Canaveral was the busiest cruise port in the world and passes the torch back and forth with the port in Miami. All the services offered are free and supported by churches in Brevard County and surrounding areas.
As the port grows, the ministry grows and is currently in expansion mode trying to raise over $700,000.00 to purchase adjacent land for phase 1 of 4 expansion phases. Plans also include expanding the building and purchasing more buses to transport visitors.
In 2022, Ingleside sent a team of six (three adults and three youth) to CPM to volunteer for a week. A former youth pastor who had served an internship there felt it would be a great mission opportunity for Ingleside. Lisa Call, missions minister at Ingleside, loved the idea, and in 2023, eight adults served for a week in June and another group of eight adults served a week in July. Everyone fell in love with serving there and what the ministry represents. A member of the July team, joked, “We should just rent a house for the summer and send a new team each week, next year.” In 2024, though the church didn’t serve the entire summer, it rented a house for six weeks and more than 40 Ingleside members volunteered. This was so popular and successful that Ingleside is renting a house for eightweeks for the summer of 2025. All eight teams are already full and we are looking to add more teams throughout the fall of 2025.
Some of the services the ministry provides are:
Free van transportation from the ship to Canaveral Port Ministry (their home away from home.)
While at the ministry, seafarers have access to free WiFi where many of them will FaceTime family members from across the world. WiFi is an expense for them while on board.
The ministry provides a shuttle bus to local stores where seafarers can shop, and back to the ministry. From there, a van back to the ship is provided.
The ministry offers free snacks, lemonade, tea and coffee at the snack bar and provides an international cuisine lunch for up to 500 people daily.
The ministry is staffed by 8-10 full time staff (chaplains) and it takes 20-25 local volunteers each day to perform all the duties. There are never enough CDL drivers to drive the larger buses. Summertime creates staffing problems as many of the locals are retired “snow birds” and head north for the summer.
That is why the support of churches like Ingleside has become so important to the ministry.
