Open Mike

Huntersville Pastors Go Beyond Racial Boundaries: My friend Byron

Today is a post from 2011 that introduces the preacher at LFC-Huntersville tommorrow - my friend Byron! Y'all are in for a treat!  This was written a year ago:

Huntersville Pastors Go Beyond Racial Boundaries (this article was published today - I wanted to share it with you, and can't wait to share my friendship with Byron with all my LFC friends this Sunday!)

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Posted: March 3rd, 2011 Ken Garfield

A shared passion to be of community good in Huntersville has led the Revs. Byron Davis and Mike Moses to forge a bond that has grown now to include their latest campaign.

Exchanging pulpits.

 “Community good” is the phrase Moses uses to explain what drives these two clergy friends to take the gospel of reconciliation where it is needed most: Out of the church and into a world too often divided by race, class and fear. Moses leads the predominantly white Lake Forest Church off Interstate 77 at exit 23. Davis pastors Mt. Olive Missionary Baptist, a largely African American church off Beatties Ford Road. Yet when the two pastors and congregations come together as they often do for worship, service and socializing, division gives way to a zeal to heal the world’s wounds. 

“Heaven,” Davis says, “will not have African Africans or whites. We are brothers in Christ.”

Davis will preach Sunday (March 6) at Lake Forest, planning to deliver a message about the need to put Christ and family first in life. He’s calling it “The Needful Thing.” The Xchange Sermons initiative will see Moses preach at Mt. Olive Missionary Baptist on March 20, echoing the message these two congregations have been putting into practice for several years.

The two churches couldn’t be more different: Founded in 1998, Lake Forest is a largely white church that draws up to 2,000 each Sunday to its new campus, having met previously in a skating rink and then the Lake Norman YMCA. Its contemporary worship and informal style strikes a chord with a suburban crowd. Founded in 1868, just after the Civil War freed the slaves, Mt. Olive Missionary Baptist draws 250 to its more traditional black Baptist style of Sunday worship. Davis has led the congregation for 20 years.

When a determination to do some community good sparked a friendship between the two pastors, ministry followed.

Members of the two churches have worked together to do home repairs for the elderly. The two pastors started a local chapter of the community activist group H.E.L.P. (Helping Empower Local People) to address social justice concerns in the area. The congregations have partnered to welcome the homeless to Lake Forest through Room in the Inn. Mt. Olive folks gladly bring the meals. Davis has led a morning men’s Bible study at Lake Forest. He also took a mission trip to India to help plant a church through Lake Forest. Moses says the partnership has helped his congregation embrace what he calls a more holistic theology of the gospel – a broadening, community-minded experience for evangelical Presbyterians more accustomed to focusing on deepening their individual relationship with God.

During a 24-hour prayer vigil at Lake Forest, Davis opened with a prayer for repentance, Moses says, because the land on which Lake Forest is built was associated many years ago with slaveholders.

 “He prayed that this land would now be a place of perpetual blessing,” Moses says, “where before it had been a place of perpetual cursing.”

Given the partnership, and the warm exchange of pulpits, those days of perpetual cursing seem like a lifetime ago.

Ken Garfield, director of communications at Myers Park United Methodist Church in Charlotte, N.C., has written extensively on Xchange Sermons. He previously served as religion editor at The Observer. Reach him at ken@mpumc.org.

Trail of Healing

Lately at Lake Forest, we've been emphasizing that people who follow Jesus (the great Healer) should live lives that 'leave a trail of healing' (in the words of Michael Flake).  This is a concrete, challenging, and even measurable way of thinking of my Christian life.  In other words, its helpful.  Could my overal life, or any single repeated personal interaction, be described as leaving a trail of healing with someone(s) who are hungry for God or hungry for food?  With people like me and unlike me?  With people who live near, and people who live far?  These questions are not theoretical.  They must be answered yes or no - our hearts long for the big answer to be 'yes' - this is what we were made for, who Jesus leads us to be.

One of the ways our whole church agreed together to follow Jesus in the future (through last year's LOVE 10 focus), is to be a church that leaves a 'trail of healing' in the closest distressed neighborhood to our Huntersville building - Huntington Green.  We call it 'loving One More Neighborhood,' or OMN.

Well, its starting to happen.  The team charged with leading us forward in this initiative has extended our relational friendships in the neighborhood, and hired an executive director with awesome experience and big vision (Earl Runcan - I'll introduce you to him more fully another time).  They are doing work 'below the waterline' right now, preparing to invite the rest of LFC in to love people relationally at the right time.

Here is the vision and mission statement just written and approved by Earl and the OMN team - I am inspired, and can't wait to be part of this!

One More Neighborhood:  "With God, all things are possible."  -Matthew 19:26b

Vision Statement:  The vision of OMN is to revitalize and transform at risk communities economically, aesthetically, and spiritually through faith-based service programs and social enterprise opportunities.

Mission Statment:  Through faith-based service programs OMN works to affirm the value of children, family, church, hard work and self-sufficiency.  Through social enterprise opportunities OMN works to empower, support and employ neighborhood families whose lives are being transformed to become role models in their community.  The Huntington Green community is our initial focus.

WOW - i can't wait to be led by these folks to participate in God's healing of some local problems, in a way God uses to heal me even more.

I Love Teaching High Poverty At-Risk Children

Friends, have you yet classified your work as part of the Missio Dei - the mission of God in this world?  I hope so. One of our most faithful Lake Forest leaders, and regular Open Mike readers, is Cathy Presson.  I have been on a mission trip to serve the poor in Mexico with Cathy and her family, listened to her talk about her job, and watched her serve weekly in Lake Forest's Kidtropolis (in spite of working hard all week and being 'mom' and 'wife').

Cathy is an authority on many things.  Regarding Charlotte's upcoming public school budget cuts, she is not only an authority, but a participant.  Hear her, receive her leadership, apply to your own work a similar vision for the Missio Dei in your job (with permission):

Hi Mike,

I just read your blog post “Called to a Place and a People” (www.openmikeblog.com click back to march 23, 2011) with tears streaming down my face.  I can relate to it 100% and in some respects, it helped me put a handle on some of the things I’ve been feeling. I’ve felt called to a people and place for the last 14 years- the high poverty, at-risk predominately African American and Hispanic pre-kindergarteners in inner city Charlotte. Next year, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools is closing Double Oaks (my school) and much of the Bright Beginnings program in which I teach.  To be sure, the stress of losing my job is high, but the greater emotion I’m dealing with is this intense sense of grief in thinking about saying goodbye to the families and community I’ve been with for so long.  Even listening to Pastor Byron Davis speak the other week, which I enjoyed so much, was tinged with sadness for me.  His words, his delivery, his mannerisms were amazing, but half the time sadness crept in because I was thinking “I’m about to lose my connection with my (adopted/other) culture.” What I do is truly not just a job for me.  I need these families and children as much as they need me.  I love teaching, but I LOVE teaching high poverty at-risk children, the marginalized, the ones so many write off before they even have a chance to begin writing their stories. Yes, their families and lives can be really jacked-up sometimes, well, a lot of the time actually, but I love them with everything I have.  I don’t want just any job; I don’t want to teach at an elite private school or an affluent school, I want to be where I am, doing what I feel God has put strongly in my heart for 14 years.  It hurts to think that my school is gone and the students I serve have had one more way to help them close the achievement gap and bring some equity to education closed off to them -but that’s another soap box for another day J. 

I don’t have any idea what God has as a next step for my life.  Perhaps I’ll be lucky enough to be one of the teachers to be brought out of the RIF pool for a job in another Title I high-poverty school.  Maybe there’s a whole new direction for me out there.  In any case, Lake Forest has been a huge support, from the leadership conference and the sermon about waiting on God’s timing, to the smaller group support and accountability on the children’s ministry team (Cammie rocks by the way) Your blog reminded me that God put this passion in me for a reason, and I can trust that He’ll either continue it into another setting, or give me an equally strong passion for another people and place.  I still hate waiting and goodbyes hurt and really suck, but I’m growing in the trust factor, I think.

Thanks for always listening to me. Oh, and by the way, I’m glad God called you to this people and place too.    Love,  Cathy Presson

Shaking off the Shackles of a Suburban Mom

If I could give out an Oscar today for awesomeness on the mission of God, in imitation of Jesus, it would be to our women's group that took their weekly meeting outside the walls of church, and landed in a high-need school.  Here is Michelle McConnell's account, or "the Oscar goes to....!":

Sometimes I'd love to shake off the shackles of my suburban stay-at-home-mom life.  Leave it all behind and go do something truly world changing!  Thanks to Ginny B's vision, once a week I get to do just that.  Ginny, too, had found herself longing to make a difference.  Her kids were all busy in school each day, so she considered offering her services there as a tutor.  But it didn't make sense to her, volunteering at a school that already had more parent involvement than it knew what to do with.  So instead, she drove a few miles down the road to Hornet's Nest Elementary, a Title 1 school (which means that more than 75 percent of the students are deemed economically disadvantaged) .There she met Mr. Thompson, who (among other roles) serves as volunteer coordinator.  Ginny got to work and quickly fell in love with the students entrusted to her, but there was a problem.  She noticed that each time she signed in to volunteer, the name written directly above hers was... her own.  Every. Single. Time.  (At her own children's school, the volunteer sign in sheet would fill up in less than a day!)  

There was no way for Ginny to help every teacher, and oh how they needed help!  Most didn't have so much as a room mother, much less people offering to tutor or assist.  That's when Ginny caught a vision.  What if Lake Forest adopted Hornet's Nest school, one volunteer at a time?  She cast that vision and it is spreading.  Currently there are nine of us volunteering in various classrooms once a week.  Mr. Thompson serves as our coordinator, and he never misses a chance to show us how appreciated we are.  His wife also works there, as a third grade teacher.  It's embarrassing to say so, but I've literally witnessed teachers bowing at our feet!  And even though we weren't sure, at first, how much of an impact we're actually having, the time and work are paying off.  Children are reading.  READING.  Teachers are opening up.  Relationships are being formed.  Wider visions are being cast.  Ginny has been invited to official CMS meetings, representing US as an example of how churches can make a difference in at risk schools. 

There are so many stories I could share with you that would warm your heart, but for now I'll share the God-story that most warms ours.  Ginny gave Mr. Thompson tickets for the Christmas Toy Store recently held at Lake Forest, asking him to distribute them to the neediest of families.  Anne Cathey, another volunteer on our team, was working the toy store when she recognized Mr. Thompson, his wife, and another teacher from the school.  Confused, she wondered what they were doing there?  They waited in line for two hours, just like everyone else that day. But they weren't buying for their own families.  No, they'd come to purchase gifts for some of the students whose families hadn't taken advantage of the tickets offered.  Anne begins to cry as she recalls realizing how humbling it must have been for him to stand in line alongside those in need, appearing as "one of them", on behalf of his students.  When it was his turn, Anne escorted him through the process, just as he'd escorted us around his school our first day there. 

I think the story speaks for itself;  the Missio Dei is afoot at Hornet's Nest Elementary School!  If you'd like to join us, we need all the help we can get. Two hours once a week, a love for kids & respect for teachers, and an eager spirit are all that's required.  In fact, one of our volunteers is dyslexic!   Early on, she worried that she wouldn't be effective as a tutor.  I probably don't have to tell you that her relate-ability makes her the most effective of us all.  And as for me?  Well, I'm not quite sure how to get through my week without a hug from 22 kindergartners who won't enter the cafeteria for lunch till they've each squeezed me tight, or without a smile from my beautiful third grade friend who is reading better and better every time we work together.  Making a difference is a joy-giving experience.  Try it.  You'll like it.  (here are three of the nine, swapping stories lover lunch)

 

Souls of White Folks

A survey in 2001 showed that the Charlotte region ranks very high in involvement in houses of faith, but next to the bottom in inter-racial trust.  As a pastor and Christian, that bothers me.  Faith in Jesus Christ should touch our souls, our ethics, our work, our money - even our race. God tells me this in 2 Corinthians 5:17,18  "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation." We are not only to live as ambassadors of reconciliation between estranged humans and their God, but between persons who are divided from persons.  Reconciliation on the cross is that big!

That means that a white Christian (such as myself) will not be neutral about such a huge lack of inter-racial trust in our community, but actively seeking ways to effect racial reconciliation in large and small ways.  For me, that has looked different in each city I've lived in - doing youth ministry in South-Central Los Angeles, or attending our church's Urban Plunge in Memphis (like Michael Flake is leading this weekend for Lake Forest Church).  As a 'minister of reconciliation,' I don't engage in reconciliation in order to 'help someone out' - its for me and my anglo tribe to experience the godly benefits of racial reconciliation as much as for other races.  My race is cursed and impoverished by the demonic and natural consequences of racial division, though the effects are different for the majority race than the minority.

Here in Charlotte it's meant forging friendships and partnerships with leaders of churches of a predominantly different race.  This recently bore fruit when Pastor Byron Davis of Mt. Olive Baptist Church graciously presided over our LOVE 10 24-7 Prayer event, including prayer specific to our land's history with slavery.

This very day (i mean today), I will attempt to live out this ministry of reconciliation by participating with a broad spectrum of pastors from around the county in: "Souls of White Folks: a project designed to increase understanding of issues of race, power and privilege from the perspective of what it means to be white.

This day-long inter-clergy experience was created in response to the Social Capital Survey Report of 2001 which showed that the Charlotte region, compared to other regions, ranked very high in involvement in houses of faith, but next to the bottom in inter-racial trust. The John S and James L Knight Foundation asked Mecklenburg Ministries to use the strength of the first to help change the second, specifically by engaging white clergy.

In 2006, Mecklenburg Ministries brought together 43 leaders in their respective faith communities to participate in a 12-hour guided session. Participants read both historical and contemporary texts, shared personal stories and experiences, and met with an advisory group of black clergy.  Today the project continues to gether clergy from around the county periodically."

So that's where I'll be today - with new and old friends. Looking for ways to apply God's grand reconciliation at the cross to ourselves personally, extending further into our city and county.