Serving Rural Appalachia!

Madison County, NC is located deep in the Appalachian Mountains of western NC. The county’s northern border is with the state of Tennessee. Like many areas of rural Appalachia, Madison County is know both for its natural beauty and its struggles with generational poverty. The area has been re-inventing itself as a place for outdoor adventure, with whitewater rafting on the French Broad River and winter snow skiing on its high mountain slopes. The Timothy Project works closely with the Community Housing Coalition of Madison County, which identifies people and places of need. The work to be done is primarily home repairs and makeovers of various types. There is work for all skill levels and never enough volunteers to get it all done. Our website gives more details. You can also learn about the Housing Coalition by going to www.chcmadisoncountync.org. Our home base for lodging and meals and more is Mars Hill College, located in one of the 3 incorporated towns in the county. Won’t you come join us?

Excerpt from Confessions of an Asset-Based Community Development Junkie

Excerpt taken from Metanoia News volume IX, issuse II, Confessions of an Asset-Based Community Development Junkie by Metanoia Board Chair — Germaine Jenkins

As well intentioned as their efforts are, traditional non-profit and government support programs inadvertently create a system that penalizes people for trying to move ahead. Did you know…

• That single moms – like my mom and myself before I got married – lose their food and child care benefits immediately when they start a new job (even if the first paycheck won’t come for two weeks to a month)?
• That you can be denied support of any kind if you make as little as a dollar over the eligible income?
• If an adult or household makes more than $600 a month they lose their medical benefits?

Talk about inner-city blues! Whenever I hear the misconception that ‘poor people are just too lazy to find a good job, feed and care for their kids or pick themselves up by their bootstraps,’ I just want to scream. Poor people are not lazy, they’re tired. Poverty is a very expensive, time and energy-consuming lifestyle.

Asset-based community development organizations like Metanoia take a very radical approach to solving inner-city problems — they listen to the people they serve. Metanoia gives people credit for knowing the solutions to their own problems, and them provides the mechanism for them to bring those solutions to life. We do not believe in handouts, instead everyone contributes to the cause. As a member of the Metanoia team, I am privileged to discover and grow assets right here in the southern tip of North Charleston.

There are serious issues that need to be addressed and we strive to create and environment in which the solutions develop within the neighborhood. Yes, the work is tough but it’s also exhilarating to know that were working towards a mission that will strengthen out community by strengthening the individuals within it. We work not only for today but with  the hope that our efforts will create a neighborhood in which our kids will want to invest, too.

Choices

Choices. For most of us, there has not been the issue of “if” so much as “what” or “where”. Where will we go for dinner? What do I want for my birthday? Do I want to buy American or foreign for my next car? Will it be the beach or the mountains for our getaway weekend? For the last couple of years, I have entered a world in which I encounter people with more limited choices. Will I be able to buy groceries this week or gas for the car to get to work? What if the car breaks down? Where will I sleep tonight? Where will the next meal come from? What is the shape of hope?

Through the organization Hope to Home, I am part of a team of persons that provide a support system for a couple that have been homeless for an extended period of time. We are the family they do not have, the premise being that the difference for success and failure for most of us is the people we have around us in times of need and celebration. Our couple now has an apartment. Now, the man is going through jobs training and the woman is working toward her GED. It has not been an easy process for any of us, and we all have had to learn about blending and understanding and patience. There have been good and bad choices as we sometimes take one step ahead and two back. We are committed for a year to help them establish a new way of living as they now have a wider array of choices.

This brings me to the point that has become my soap box. An effective church missions program is about balance, commitment and risk. It is about encountering people where they are and not making our own suppositions about who they are and what they need. It is about balancing traditional mission and service projects with others that might require us to risk something. It is about balancing service in your own community with service in other communities, near and far. It is about both showing compassion and mercy while seeking justice. It is about committing to people in terms of building relationships. Our Hope to Home team hit a wall when out formerly homeless partners relapsed into drug use after they had the freedom of their own apartment. We contemplated tough love as a response, thinking our support might be interpreted as enabling. It was a struggle that divided opinions among team members, myself included. Some felt this was a breach of contract and others felt it indicated a withdrawal from us. Several of us thought that we needed to suspend out interaction with them, which we did briefly. My turning point came when my friend George, a formerly homeless vet with a history of drug addiction talked with me. He said simply, “ Well, Jesus wouldn’t like what they are doing. But he couldn’t share anything with them if he wasn’t there.”

Being there. One of our many choices.

How then, shall we live?

This was a difficult Christmas for my family. My wife’s mother became very ill, was hospitalized the Wednesday before Christmas and we spent several days wondering if she would make it. She has recovered and is now back at home. It was so close, she later shared her visions of angels, at the time we were celebrating the angels announcement of Christ’s birth. For me personally, a major goal I had been working toward was not accomplished. That held a grief of its own. In the midst of all this, I sensed God reminding me of something very important—we are God’s children and He wants to find ways to bless us. That truth hit me so powerfully that my perspective changed. It shed new light on this Christmas experience and the blessing of the Christ child. So, my own epiphany leads me into this season of Epiphany. How will we live out this New Year? I would suggest we practice awareness, not acquisition. That is a more receptive stance than most of us in ministry are accustomed. Just the thought of it brings a sigh to my otherwise controlling nature.

Jenny Lee, our minister with students, preached the sermon on January 1 for college day. She used the story of Anna and Simeon meeting baby Jesus as her backdrop. Here is an excerpt. I think it is a great thought for approaching the New Year.

     ”The question I always ask myself when I think of this story is this: Why did they know Jesus when they saw him?  The only answer I have is that Anna and Simeon lived in a perpetual state of paying attention to what God was doing in their world.  They were watching and waiting.  They knew God acts and they weren’t expecting anything less than an inbreaking of God in their reality. 

     Simeon and Anna were, to use a phrase I recently heard, adventurously expectant.  That phrase comes from Eugene Peterson’s The Message paraphrase, where he translates Romans 8:15 as, “This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life.  It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?”  Now, obviously, Paul’s words in Romans weren’t meant to describe Anna and Simeon, but I think they do quite well.  Adventurously expectant.”

May God bless and keep you!

Cliff Christian

Raising Up a New Generation for Christ

Article I found by Tito Madrazo, First, Drexel, from the CBFNC newsletter

Last summer marked our second mission trip to Mexico City. In a two-year partnership with local churches and community centers,we renovated buildings, ran a health clinic, provided sewing lessons, and taught Vacation Bible School. Best of all, we had prayed with more than 75 children as they accepted Jesus  Christ as their savior. It was exhilarating. But we came back home with the question hanging over us, “How can we be more effective in reaching the children in our  own backyard?” That can be a difficult question for a medium-size church like ours, ministering with limited resources in a smalltown setting. Our answer began to take shape in unlikely ways as I met with our new elementary school principal to welcome him to the community. We already had a good relationship with the school, sponsoring a dental bus ministry and offering free summer tutoring, but I asked our new principal if there were other ways we could be supportive. That’s when he told me about an after-school Bible club that a church had conducted at his former school. It sounded like a great opportunity, but I had questions in my mind about how it would work and how this other church had ministered effectively while still respecting the boundaries of church and state. So, I called their pastor, we met up for breakfast, and he graciously shared with  me what he had learned over two years of after-school ministry. When I first brought the idea before our church, everyone was excited, but a little nervous about how we could get a ministry like this up off the ground. We had planning sessions and started signing up volunteers who would lead small groups, teach music, serve snacks, and organize recreation for what we were now calling Club 316. One of our biggest challenges was letting children and parents know what we were doing. We couldn’t ask the school to advertise a religious program, so we set up a booth at Open House along with all of the other clubs and community organizations. Several dozen parents signed permission slips and waiver forms to allow their children to join us on Monday afternoons from 2:45-4:15. We also reached out to parents whose children were already involved in the elementary’s after-school childcare program. On September 13th, we kicked off Club 316 with 86 kids. We divided them in four age-based groups and rotated them through our schedule. Now, I’ve taught all ages of people in all kinds of settings, but holding the attention of 40-50 kids at the end of a long day of school was the most difficult teaching assignment I’ve ever had. We ended up using a VeggieTales curriculum and shared the gospel each week through a combination of videos, puppets, and play-acting. Over the course of the year, we ministered to more than 130 kids. We took time at the end of each semester to follow up with them individually about what they had learned, and 11 kids from Club 316 accepted Christ for the first time, while several others expressed a desire to be baptized. Some of them have been baptized in other churches where their families are members, but many of them, including several who were previously unchurched, have been baptized during our Sunday morning worship services. Now they come to our Wednesday night children’s program and several of their families worship with us regularly as well. Club 316 has given us a wonderful opportunity to reach our community across racial and socioeconomic lines, to reach families who might otherwise slip through the cracks, and to raise up a new generation for Christ.

“Teens Leave Churches Seen as Judgmental”

An article I found while reading Baptist Today News Journal, by Adelle M. Banks

© 2011 Religion News Service

Why do young Christians leave the church?

New research by the Barna Group finds they view churches as judgmental, overprotective, exclusive and unfriendly towards doubters. They also consider congregations antagonistic to science and say their Christian experience has been shallow.

The findings, the result of a five-year study, are featured in You Lost Me: Why Young Christians are Leaving Church and Rethinking Faith, a new book by Barna president David Kinnaman. The project included a study of 1,296 young adults who were current or former churchgoers.

Researchers found that almost three out of five young Christians (59 percent) leave church life either permanently or for an extended period of time after age 15.

One in four 18- to 29-year-olds said “Christians demonize everything outside of the church.” One in three said, “Church is boring.”

Clashes between church expectations and youths’ experience of sexuality have driven some away. One in six young Christians said they “have made mistakes and feel judged in church because of them.” And 40 percent of 18- to 29-year-old Catholics said their church’s doctrine on sexuality and birth control is “out of date.”

Kinnaman called the problem of young dropouts from church “particularly urgent” since many churches are used to “traditional” young adults who leave home, get educated, find a job and start a family before age 30.

“Churches are not prepared to handle the `new normal,”‘ said Kinnaman. “However, the world for young adults is changing in significant ways, such as their remarkable access to the world and worldviews via technology, their alienation from various institutions, and their skepticism toward external sources of authority, including Christianity and the Bible.” http://www.baptiststoday.org/daily-rns-stories/2011/10/11/daily-rns-news.html

Let go of your youth job!

Bob, a youth minister friend, told me this summer, “You have a great job!” On a Thursday night, after several consecutive weeks of coordinating missions, I remember having to pause before responding. Uhh….let me think about that one. Actually, the moment passed pretty quickly and it occurred to me that this was true. It was one of those “aha” moments when you remember what you already know. Dang good thing we have those! In my personal and professional life, it is always a process of holding on and letting go. I don’t know about you, but it is easy for me to get caught up in what I believe to be other people’s expectations. And I know I have responsibilities. All this sends my need to control into high gear. It comes down to a trust issue. Do I trust that God will send me what I need to have or does my controlling nature actually limit God and His possibilities? Sometimes I have no choice but to allow God to be in charge, there is so much to do. During Bob’s mission week, we hosted 5 churches—2 Methodist, 1 Presbyterian, 1 Baptist, 1 Episcopal. These are some projects this week alone. 1) Extreme makeovers on 3 homes 2) Two Vacation Bible Schools 3) Work at the Food Bank 4) Painting and sorting at the Thrift Store 5) Construction, clean up and meal prep at 2 homeless shelters 6) Environmental stewardship in a national forest. 7) Gleaning fields with the Society of St Andrew. It was a wonderful week and beyond what I would have imagined on my own.

The Church Budget and Your Personal Process

It’s budget pledging time at our church. Beginning of fall, football, leaves changing, budget pledging. Happens every year. I know this process varies from church to church. Our tradition has been for the various church departments and organizations in the church to propose what is needed for the coming year, taking past years’ budgets into account, along with projected hopes and needs. At its best, the process is both practical and spiritual. The overall budget is then presented to the finance committee and the deacon body. if the deacons approve, then it is eventually brought before the entire church for a vote. (of course the final vote is if people will give their money). Along the way, before the church vote, members have opportunity to interact with the budget, ask questions and make suggestions in a series of small group meetings.

My role as chair of the missions committee has put me squarely in the middle of things, especially since ours is a large budget item. As a committee, we sought a 30% increase in our missions giving over 2011. The night I proposed this to the Deacons, the stock market had lost 400 points during the day. I thought, “Lord, what will this mean?” As God would have it, the people have rallied around it. I think it is a sign of hope and obedience. The gospel writer reminds us to just stay in process, not look too far ahead, for “each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Mt 6:34) That is especially hard when times are tough, with layers of concerns. Our pastor’s words yesterday challenge me: “Perhaps we are more impressed with the problems of the world than the power of God.” I can’t deny that it is often true for me.

I say all this simply to encourage us to stay on track, hang with the process that is true for you, continue doing what you do well and be open to new ideas while unwilling to jump at them. Whenever I am numbers and results driven, my soul literally gets sick. It is the process that will get us where we need to be and that process involves staying centered in Christ.

Sacred Space

The wedding was moved outside. It was a risk and there was the possibility of rain in the area, but it didn’t. We were at the top of the mountain ridge and the green valley lay down below us. A perfect backdrop for the minister’s homily in which he spoke of the space between bride and groom as sacred space. In the ceremony, it was the space where God entered. The space made room for a Covenant.

I have never been a big fan of outdoor weddings, even though I have officiated at a few. Adding yet another variable to a day wrought with variables. Mercy! I may be softening after this last one, though. As the wedding party came forward, the wind picked up. A wind-before-the-storm breeze without the storm. Wind, Spirit, Presence, Sacred Space. I had to notice.

Since then, I have been noticing a little more. Listening in, if you will. Small things seen a certain way can seem nothing short of miraculous. Standing in the field behind my farmhouse, I sensed a rustling behind me. Turning around to see a fawn, her coat spotted in great detail, standing looking up at me, her big eyes full of wild innocence. As I mow the yard, swallows working a field for their insect dinners follow me in a swirling array , catching startled grasshoppers in their hasty retreat.

Small things are worth noticing because that is where we usually find sacred space. That seems to be the way God speaks. Frederick Beuchner writes: “ There is no event so commonplace but that God is present within it, always hiddenly, always leaving you room to recognize him or to not recognize him, but all the more fascinatingly because of that, all the more compelling and hauntingly.” So, if we wait and wait for that handwriting on the wall, or for the lightning to strike and the earth to shake, think about what we might be missing.

Survive and Move On

“I alone know the plans I have for you, plans to bring you prosperity and not disaster, plans to being about the future you hope for.” Jeremiah 29:11 (Good News)

 

SURVIVE AND MOVE ON
Can you believe the NCAA men’s tournament? My bracket was busted after the first weekend. Yours too, probably. I read that out of 5.9 million entries in ESPN’s bracketology, there have been 2 correct entries. Now we have four coaches that include a former drug rep, a cancer survivor, a Zulu warrior namesake and a coach that reinvents his entire team. The mantra you most often hear in the tourney is “survive and move on.” You don’t have to be the best team in the field, just the best team THAT NIGHT. The Final Four have earned the right, from survive to thrive. It is our life lesson today.

There is absolutely no doubt that there is a lot of just plain surviving going on right now. Almost everyone I know is hunkered down in their mental storm shelters, hanging on, pushing through, trying to do the best they can. I include myself in that number. In this context, I am drawn to Jeremiah. Chapter 29 has lived with me a long time. His letter to the Jews living in a foreign hostile place gives us guidelines in turning surviving into thriving.

• As much as possible, try and make peace with the place where you are (both literally and figuratively).
• We often find ourselves living in the meantime, between where we are and where we want to be.
• It is easy to spend our time waiting for something to make us feel whole—a job, a relationship, a child, a new home, something.
• Find healing and hope in the everyday pieces of life that give us meaning. There is purpose in the commonplace. It makes the wait go so much better.
• God is still here, even in the meantime. This was quite a revelation to those captives in Babylon.
• God has plans for you to thrive, not merely survive. The emphasis, as always, is what God does, not what we think we can do, should do or miss doing. Take that with you through your day!