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Worshiping Communities
The “New Way” podcast, which debuted in January with host the Rev. Sara Hayden, began dropping episodes for its second season beginning July 30.
Becca Stevens, one of the keynote speakers for the 1001 New Worshiping Communities and Vital Congregations national gathering coming up October 14-16 in Kansas City, Mo., remembers how she felt when she started a residential community for women who have survived tracking, prostitution and addiction.
In 2012, by action of the 220th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the movement to establish 1001 new communities of faith all over the country was made official.
After he participates in worship and preaches this weekend, 1001 New Worshiping Communities associate the Rev. Michael Gehrling will dance.
In part, he’ll dance because he can see the future again — a future made brighter through a (dance) step of faith.
The Presbyterian Mission Agency approved 12 Mission Program Grants to worshiping communities during its latest grant cycle. Among them are eight $7,500 seed grants to help an assortment of 1001 new worshiping communities get started in various presbyteries across the country.
Last summer, I received a call to join Olympia Presbytery in planting a new worshiping community, Hagar’s Community Church, at the Washington Corrections Center for Women (WCCW) — the largest women’s prison in Washington state.
The Rev. Dr. Gregory Ellison, one of the keynoters for the 1001 New Worshiping Communities and Vital Congregations national gathering October, remembers how he felt in the midst of a media firestorm six years ago.
LOUISVILLE — Traci Canterbury has found a spiritual home and a willing and able partner in The Fellowship Place in Charlotte, N.C. The Fellowship Place is one of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s 1001 New Worshiping Communities and recently accepted the Matthew 25 invitation.
For 15 years, Canterbury has managed the Southern Comfort Inn, an extended-stay residence for about 300 people, including 80 children. Residents are low-income or are on a fixed income.
“They have been doing a lot of work here for the past few years, but this year they have stepped it up. They’re such a blessing to the residents here,” Canterbury said of The Fellowship Place, which has about 70 members. “They are the most generous church I have seen. They are so loving that you feel right at home.”
The Fellowship Place is in fact so welcoming, she said, that she started worshiping there in April.
“There’s a reason we have that name,” said Patricia Franks, clerk of session at The Fellowship Place. The ministry’s logo features a lower-case “t” and “p” but a capital “f.”
“That’s intentional,” she said. “It’s the fellowship and the hospitality. That’s what people always say about us.”
The Fellowship Place was a ministry placed in Charlotte’s West Corridor. But it had to move when the building it was renting was no longer available, Franks said. Now The Fellowship Place nests in another church in what Franks called “a more affluent section” of the community, but “we come back to the west side again and again for mission work.”
The partnership began four years ago when members of The Fellowship Place delivered Thanksgiving meals to Southern Comfort Inn residents. That’s grown to include drives to collect food and personal care items and help navigating the school system as well as guidance with resume preparation and help styling the hair of Southern Comfort Inn’s younger residents. That final outreach is one of the most popular services offered.
“It’s things we don’t even think about,” Franks said, adding that church members partner with stylists to offer residents haircare services. “A hairdo is way down on people’s list.”
Soon church members plan on putting on a Bible study at the Southern Comfort Inn.
“We are big on not imposing what we think people need,” Franks said. “We’ve learned we have to ask people what their needs are.” Services that came out of that ask-first approach include resume writing and help navigating the local school system for people experiencing homelessness. The Fellowship Place is also scouting out a van to purchase to transport residents who want to worship over to the church.
The Bible study will be on “a subject of interest” to residents, Franks predicted.
“Where they take you, you have to go,” she said. “I imagine they will say, ‘You know, Lord, I worked hard. I had a little bad luck and look where it has landed me. Why me, God?”
Outreach efforts made to residents of the Southern Comfort Inn come about “because we are built that way,” says The Fellowship Place pastor the Rev. Dr. Michael Robinson.
“It’s mandated by Jesus Christ, and doing mission beyond the walls of the church excites people,” he said. “It brings together the church and the community, and it introduces people to something they couldn’t do without Jesus Christ.”
“We go out of our way to welcome strangers,” he added. “People come here and tell us they can’t believe the hospitality, from the parking lot to the pew. We sow the love of Christ no matter who you are or what you’ve done. We have found the sweet spot (at the Southern Comfort Inn) because we are all the Lord’s children. We embrace that.”
On The Way Church, a Spanish-speaking multicultural 1001 new worshiping community in Atlanta, is holding a “Pray for Venezuela” day on June 9 for those impacted by that country’s worsening economic and political crisis.
Beth McCaw didn’t know what she was getting into when she first heard God’s call to start a 1001 new worshiping community. As a social worker, she was a long way from the challenges she would face in launching a new faith community.
