Commission on Human Affairs Meeting in Charleston, 3/96

Commission on Human Affairs Meeting in Charleston

March 14-16, 1996

Present:

Bishop Larry Maze, Bishop Edward Salmon (chair); clergy Reynolds Cheney, and Daniel Riggall; lay Louie Crew (secretary), Scott Evenbeck, Mary Fong, and Bruce Garner (vice chair). Bp. Maze missed first day; Bp. Salmon missed morning and afternoon of the second day.

Bruce Woodcock, liaison from The Episcopal Church Center.

Absent:

Germaine Hoston.

March 14, 1996

9 a.m.

Note: throughout the minutes dates and times are approximate because many later sessions expanded earlier ones. I have tried to keep topics together rather than preserve an exact chronology of our meeting. -- LC

We reviewed where we are.

We see our Blue Book report as a message that General Convention might send to the church and to the new Presiding Bishop to say that "These are priorities for policy in for the next triennium."

We want our report to be in the format of a curriculum document. We asked Dr. David Crean to be our writer. He agreed by telephone and will meet with us at our three remaining meetings.

Dr. Crean has much related experience: he has directed the Hunger Office of the Episcopal Church Center for several years, and he is the author of numerous reports and study documents, most recently of Journey to Adulthood, in which a parish undertakes to participate substantially in the spiritual formation of its children.

Louie Crew will send to Dr. Crean the minutes from all our meetings to date. Mary Fong, Bp. Salmon, Bishop Maze, Dan Riggall, Reynolds Cheney (as commissioners who have arranged, or will arrange, our visits to specific sites) will post to David Crean as soon as possible any brochures, formation documents, or other materials from those agencies that will help in documenting our accounts of our visitations.

Dr. David Crean
2024 Woodrow Street
Durham, NC 27705

919-286-2172 h; 919-682-5708 o

We looked at Bruce Garner's "Draft introduction to our Blue Book Report" and will revisit this document in Vermont when we begin to pick and choose what we most want our writer to include in our curriculum document.

Prompting churches to act

What has really broken the ice locally has been the development of an ecumenical council, which hosted a forum called "If Jesus Were Among Us..." The forum focused on what we would do for homeless people if Jesus walked with us now (in a physical form, identified as Jesus).

This led to a local appearance by a representative of a group in another city which had developed a program wherein churches shelter homeless families. The raw human need--hungry children sleeping under bridges and in cars--combined with a discussion of the many scriptural admonitions to care for the poor and the homeless, resulted in some (but not all) local churches deciding that they, too, would take turns sheltering these families for a week each year. You'll be glad to know that St. John's Episcopal, under the leadership of interim priest Father Norm Cramm, was one of the most enthusiastic and effective hosts. Uniformly, participating churches have found that the experience of hosting homeless families has invigorated their faith.

--John Records <jrecords@sonic.net> in Homelessness, a Resource Packet, which Louie Crew collected and circulated to each commissioner in advance of our meeting.

Dr. Hoston has now missed three meetings of our four meetings; we asked Bishop Salmon to inquire whether the Commission might relieve some of the pressures she now faces by finding someone else to fill out her term.

11:10

We spent this period catching up on where we are personally.

3:30

We met with Agape Ministries, a non-denominational ministry in east Charleston, an area of 1.5 square miles, hard hit by crime, drugs, poverty, homelessness, and other social difficulties.

In response, Jimmy Gallant and Dallas Wilson, have built Agape Ministries, a complicated network which includes:

We most liked the vision of the Agape team in integrating a vast array of services (education, medical services, recreation.....). We were also impressed by the networking the Agape leaders had done with responses to similar problems in communities all across the United States. They were not working in isolation..

Bishop Salmon explained that he got involved because he spotted a program that was already working with indigenous leadership and vision; he felt that the Church could help connect Agape Ministries with the resources of the church, the government, and business.

When the church faces the needs of the world, the problem is often not money or resources, but vision. We need to win the hearts of our people to share from the vast bounty with which we have already been blessed. --Bishop Salmon

Commissioners expressed some concern that the charismatic appeal of the two leaders who met with us might become a liability in the administration of such a program. Bishop Salmon explained that it is a poor leader who undertakes to administer as well as lead in a project of this size. Agape Ministries has hired good administrators with channels of accountability. Otherwise the mayor, the governor, and the banks would not be funding and promoting the program. Wilson and Gallant noted that Episcopal parishes supply a major portion of their volunteer corps and that the bishop has been a pastor to them. Both have applied to be considered for ordination in the Episcopal Church.

March 15, 1996

We debriefed regarding our experience of Agape Ministries, stressing what we want to affirm:

The Agape model serves our notion of the primacy of servant ministry as the way the church should move within the community.

Our curriculum document might include several ways to respond to the Agape model by looking at needs in the communities of those using the curriculum:

One of the most powerful places in the House of Bishops' report on racism is the observation that we must quit telling people they have got to be like us. One of the most powerful moments in the commission's visit to east Charleston occurred when we asked the two leaders why they had applied to become Episcopal priests. "Not to become more white Episcopalians," they explained. "As priests we would continue to bring ministry that respects our community's uniqueness and value."

Our curriculum should face squarely some of the possible pitfalls:

Speaking of Risk......

This ministry was not without controversy -- homeowners' associations, members of the parish, etc. After two successful years, the shelter moved to a permanent location nearer to Marietta -- the urban part of the county.

The shelter was eventually moved because a chunk of the congregation felt that the growth of the parish was harmed by the shelter's presence. We're in the middle of a lot of upwardly mobile folk with lots of kids, etc.

Two interesting points: This is the first year that our pledged budget is back to where it was during the shelter years, and two, attendance is only now back to where it was during those years. In spite of the smell, the grunge, etc., it seemed we did better when we had a real outreach program that wasn't so nice and tidy. Sure we got more members, but they didn't attend as much as the "old" group, and their average pledge was $10 a week!

--Gary B. Roberts in Homelessness--A Resource Packet, page 35

Next we revisited our experience when we met with the Commission on Asian Ministry of the Diocese of California (see the minutes of our August 1995 meeting). We stressed:

Bishop Maze stressed how difficult all of us find it to make the emotional shift that occurs when we take responsibility for understanding that we and our affluence are a part of the problem. We have been educated to believe that persons of other races should adapt to us. Bishop Maze recommended the new biography of former Presiding Bishop John Hines. Bishop Hines stressed that when we start giving away some of our money, the emotional reaction can be terrifying.

In Memphis we will visit a program serving the working poor. One volunteer there recently spotted a man with no coat, and she found a coat for him, not out of benevolence, but out of connection. When Christians connect, they begin to see persons not as clients but as brothers and sisters. When the church becomes involved, it can't ignore the green card and social security issues, but it can often bypass them. The church can see people, not categories, and when if finds people hungry, or sick, or in prison, or without adequate clothing, the church can find the doctors who will volunteer the time, provide the space for a clinic.....

A vestry member had a modest income from raising and harvesting pecans, yet gave generously not only of her money but also her compassionate service to anyone in need. She was one of the first women to join the vestry. At one meeting, a general complained about giving to the church, especially any money going beyond the parish itself. "The problem is one of control," the general said. When we give money beyond our parish, we don't have any control over how that money is spent!"

"No," the new vestry member replied, gently but firmly. "The problem is not one of control. When I give my money to the church, I give it to God. I don't need to control what the vestry or the diocese or the national church does with it. I trust that they will do what should be done with the Lord's money. The problem is not control, but faith. You need more faith that God will take our offerings and do with them far more than we could ever dream."

--Reynolds Cheney

Recently in a church feeding program of Sisters of Pride. in Atlanta, in a random act of violence, someone shot a worker with Meals on Wheels. In all the commotion, a little child come tugged another volunteer and asked, "Are y'all coming back?" Disciples always come back.

Bishop Maze spoke of a powerful video (The Color of Pain) recently viewed by the House of Bishops and by Executive Council. The video addresses the role of unearned privilege in our society. Bruce Woodcock will check on the possibility that the Commission might view the video at our next meeting, in Vermont.

The introduction section of the curriculum document.

See Bruce Garner's draft introduction. In the curriculum format, we should immediately prompt users to explore how they might become engaged in servant ministry:

The curriculum should:

Ours is a struggle for the souls of our people vis-à-vis the values of our culture and the values of our church. We are too absorbed by the values of power and being big. We reward people for being successful in the values of the culture. We need the standards of the servant community, not a success community. --Reynolds Cheney

Every one of you is a disciple, and every one here will hear co-workers and neighbors talking about lesbian and gay people in some hostile ways. Whenever you hear that, you betray Christ if you sit in silence. You have an obligation gently to say to those present, "My church teaches us a different response. My church teaches that lesbians and gays are children of God and entitled to full love, care and pastoral concern."

--Jack McKelvey

Next we raised a series of questions for Bishop Salmon:

He answered:

" We can enter into existing social ministries and bring our enormous influences to make a difference. We do not have to start from scratch. We have all kinds of talent to make a difference in existing programs. We have access to networks: Money is there if someone is already there holding up the flag and raising the vision. The solution is not to create a desk that gives all the vision. Instead, we need to have someone to help with network, perhaps at the province level. Some provinces have found that if the network help works only half-time, others realize that they must help and not leave all to the paid staff.

"Often the church can serve best by providing a public blessing and offering the help of people with the getting the material support, as well as board members to provide structure."

--Bishop Salmon

Noon. Meeting with youth minister.

We met with Van Arrington, a non-denominational African American minister hired to coordinate youth programs for African Americans on Pawley's Island. For the last seven months, he has worked for All Saints Church on Pawley's Island, a parish in a very affluent resort community which had had no success earlier in trying to attract African American children to its own substantial youth program . Arrington's program uses the site of Camp Baskerville, historically a meeting place for African American Episcopalians.

Before being recruited by All Saints, Arrington ran a street mission in Florence, SC, for nine years, with a track record of leading children into whole and healthy lives in the midst of a community embattled by poverty and crime. Arrington noted: "In Florence I started with 30 children; I ended with 60." A Clemson football player and graduate with degree in early childhood, Arrington was something of a novelty when he showed up in Pawley's Island, even as he was in Florence earlier. "He was the only man I had seen who was living with a wife and raising a stable family," said Noel Smith, who came along with Arrington to meet with us. Smith had been a street kid in Florence with no direction in his life. Now he is married and a minister and hopes to be Arrington's co-worker soon. Arrington calls him "my Timothy." Arrington himself grew up in a strong, stable family.

"Ours is a ministry to kids, not to establish a church," Arrington stressed; "it is a ministry of spiritual fathering." The children of the rural poor on Pawley's Island lack the "project mentality" he found in Florence, but he still faces "the country form of the drug problem."

The ministry at Camp Baskerville has programs for children of all ages, including cookouts, Bible camp, skating, trips... "With many of the older children, I am still earning my right to be heard," Arrington stressed. "That can easily take 3-5 years reaching out to the community. It's important to stay at the work patiently as we go after lives for Jesus."

The young people earn the right to participate in one of Arrington's recreation events by participating in meeting 4-5 meetings. Arrington stresses that structures are important for those who have no father present and very little parental backing.

Half of the12 on his steering committee come from All Saints parish, which also provides lists of volunteers. Children from the white families at All Saints came to one meeting at Camp Baskerville, but the two groups of youth immediately split.

All Saints rents a house for Arrington right in the hard part of the rural community. He and his wife have found the adjustment difficult in moving from Florence. "I need help," Arrington stressed, "good help." His wife now is part-time at All Saints, and he hopes that soon she will be able to work with him full-time.

The ministry also has transportation problems. "I can get more, but also need more volunteers." He and his wife dream of starting a Christian school, with a good gymnasium, especially to serve children who have been kicked out of public school.

When you ask the small children what they want to do when they grow up, they give the same answers small children anywhere give, to be doctors, lawyers, mayors..... but when you ask the teenagers you get a different story: their vision has narrowed to the world which they now see open to them. -- Van Arrington

2:30

Debriefing after our meeting with the youth ministers

We felt positive about:

Some of us had some translation work to do regarding the language we associate with fundamentalism. "Saving souls for Jesus" to the ears of some Episcopalians signals a retreat from the needs of one's neighbors and into a comfortable, but disengaged piety. That was not how Arrington used the terminology.

Mary Fong noted that many in the Asian congregations are quite comfortable speaking of being saved:

It is the way many Asians perceive their rescue by Jesus. Many immigrants have spent years in horrendous holding tanks abroad and in the United States, wondering whether they would ever be released. Those experiences mirror for them their deliverance and transformation as Christians. They believe that generations to come will be blessed. I grew up with the language in this more affirming dimension.

Some of us also had trouble with the language of total warfare with which Arrington described his efforts in competition with those of Muslims organizing in the same community.

Evening Session of March 15 and Morning of March 16

Our Blue Book report might ask:

People are divided into the righteous and the unrighteous, and the righteous do most of the dividing. --Loren Mead

The only thing that generated as much controversy to rival my stand for gays was my stand against the Christian Coalition. --Bishop Larry Maze

We want to give high priority not to label bashing, but to our mission statement.

Our Advocacy Role:

Maybe bandaid is the wrong analogy altogether. Shelters are more like a MASH tent in a war zone. Sometimes people get patched up and sent home. Sometimes they are just a place to rest before going back to the war. But the casualties keep coming and the war still goes on until the people and the politicians make it stop.

Tim Harris, realos@i-d.com, Homelessness--A Resource Packet, page 38.

Steven Carter (The Culture of Disbelief) makes the case for Christian advocacy. Ours is not a model for self-interest (cf. AARP), but the model of advocates for God's people. Ours is a model of servanthood. The specifics of how-to will grow from exposure to the problems locally rather than nationally. The bad news in this model is that change at the local level occurs at a rapid pace, often creating instability with shifts in funds, personnel, and other resources. The good news is that partners have much more leverage on the local level, much more flexibility.

Our curriculum ought to contain how-to sections on advocacy, including documents essential to networking within the Episcopal Church, such as: