Panelists from the Presbytery of Giddings-Lovejoy and the Presbytery of the Pacific regaled those attending the Polity, Benefits and Mission Conference with the innovative Matthew 25 work going on in their jurisdictions — one related to affordable housing and the other to racial justice.
For the better part of the past decade, Carl and Rebecca Hart, and eventually their young son, lived at The Grove Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. The housing arrangement allowed them the time, energy, and relative financial freedom to serve the church and the surrounding community. This relationship flourished until, in the summer of 2022, an unexpected ruling from the fire inspector forced The Grove to evict the Harts. The Rev. Kate Murphy, pastor at The Grove, says this situation points to a bigger justice issue, and she wants the larger church to fight back.
In the Presbytery of Charlotte, which the Rev. Dr. Jan Edmiston serves as general presbyter, seven churches predate the United States. “People in our churches run banks and universities and hospitals and seminaries. I feel really fortunate to be here,” she told the Rev. Dr. Lee Hinson-Hasty of the Presbyterian Foundation during last week’s episode of Leading Theologically, which can be viewed here or here.
Churches in the Presbytery of Denver are reaching out to their neighbors without homes in traditional and even system-altering ways, including a successful effort to get the Aurora City Council to alter zoning on a tract of land to permit development of much-needed affordable housing in what’s become the seventh most expensive place in the nation to own or rent a home.
According to a 2020 count, Los Angeles County had 66,433 homeless residents, about the same population as two of California’s college towns, Palo Alto and Davis. Churches including First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood and its indominable director of Urban Mission and Community Outreach, Amie Quigley, became “the model for how church-based homeless ministries work in collaboration with city, county and private agencies,” said the Rev. Heidi Worthen Gamble, Mission Catalyst for the Presbytery of the Pacific.
In an effort to deepen its commitment to the Matthew 25 invitation, Anchorage Presbyterian Church in Louisville, Kentucky, has been holding a series of weekly sessions it’s calling A Place at the Table. Sunday’s discussion on affordable housing in and around Louisville featured Tony Curtis, executive director of the Metropolitan Housing Coalition. Curtis’ slides are here and his talk may be viewed here, along with a previous talk by retired attorney Bill Wilson about the history of housing and redlining in Louisville.
Scripture is full of human desire for a sense of home, belonging, security: a mother lovingly placing a basket in the reeds to protect her infant son, a faith community’s journey through wilderness to find a promised homeland, a place to lay a baby’s head when there’s no room at the inn.
In the parking lot of First Presbyterian Church of Hayward in Castro Valley, California, a village of five tiny homes is the most visible manifestation of the church’s effort to address homelessness. “We’ve come to the theological place, maybe philosophical, that housing is a human right,” said the Rev. Jake Medcalf, Hayward’s lead pastor. “If we don’t provide housing in our neighborhoods, especially in an area like the Bay, we are literally — I don’t think it’s dramatic, I think it’s real — condemning people to die on the streets.”
