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Children
at the Frankford Group Ministry.
Image by:John Coleman
Source:
New World
Outlook
The
combined church choirs of the
Gallatin
,
Tennessee
,
Shalom Zone Coalition.
Image by:Linda Wesley
Source:
New World
Outlook
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BEACON
OF HOPE - Communities of Shalom
by John Coleman, Jr.
You shall be
called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in. Isaiah
58:12b
In
Gallatin
,
Tennessee
, an interracial, ecumenical coalition
of seven churches worked alongside local residents, businesses, and
institutions over the past four years to rescue and refurbish a city park
once overrun with drug dealers. Today, the park is used for recreation
programs and a community garden that grows and nurtures relationships as
much as it does vegetables, according to the Rev.
Cathie Leimenstoll, pastor of
Rehoboth
United
Methodist
Church
. The Shalom Zone Coalition recently
embarked on its most ambitious project yet: raising $2 million to save an
abandoned but once-cherished African American high school facing
demolition. The coalition plans to resurrect it as a community education
and activity center.
In
Illinois
, another new community center may well
become the salvation of a depressed section of
Decatur
, long burdened
with poor housing, high crime, and apathy.
Since 1994, the United Community of Shalom, a church-based
community coalition, has overcome city politics and racial, cultural, and
economic differences among its members in its quest to build the
much-needed activity center. In June 2001, more than 500 people celebrated
the new facility, which offers space for recreation, social services, and
neighborhood programs. Most of all, it has inspired renewed pride,
cooperation, and hope for the future.
Ten Year
Anniversary
Such is the promise and spirit of Communities of Shalom, a 10-year-old
United Methodist initiative that has emerged as a movement among
congregations and communities throughout the continental
United States
and
in parts of
Africa
. It all began in 1992 in
Los Angeles
,
California
, in the wake of
the devastating riots ignited by the acquittal of White policemen in the
beating of Black motorist Rodney King. With support authorized by the
denomination’s General Conference, United Methodist churches and their
neighbors responded to the violence by developing intensive and
collaborative ministries in designated Shalom Zone areas. They sought to
address community concerns, heal conflicts, and remedy the deplorable
conditions that had helped fuel the uprisings.
As of June 2002, teams from more than 500 Shalom sites in cities, towns,
and rural areas have been trained and commissioned for ministry in 42
annual conferences. A decade
after its birth, the initiative is still touching and transforming lives
and relationships in many communities that wrestle with poverty, violence,
alienation, and despair. Shalom sites engage congregations with their
neighbors—often including different faith groups, local residents,
businesses, police, community organizations, schools, and other
institutions—in joint efforts to transform systems that affect
people’s lives.
The resulting kaleidoscope of ministries ranges from community
gardens, nutrition programs, and health clinics to affordable housing,
community centers, entrepreneur programs, computer-literacy classes, and
multiracial coalitions that advocate for social justice.
Strengthened multicultural relationships, like those being nurtured
in Gallatin and Decatur, are one of the four primary goals that all
communities of Shalom are expected to pursue. The others are spiritual
growth, economic development, and health and wholeness. Asset-based
community development, which focuses on a community’s resources rather
than solely on its needs, is one of the four guiding principles of Shalom
emphasized in training and program development. The others are
collaboration to achieve common goals, mission evangelism that emphasizes
the spiritual and social needs of people in sharing the Gospel of Jesus
Christ, and systemic change that addresses the root causes of the
problems, which may be racism or economic exploitation.
Empowering
Communities
Learning about collaboration and asset-based community development
were the main attractions to the Shalom Initiative for church leaders in
the Wyoming Conference, comprising parts of
Pennsylvania
and
New York
State
. In 1999, a five-month-long Shalom
training was held in three sites in northeastern
Pennsylvania
. Today there are 11 Shalom sites in
the conference.
One site in
Wilkes-Barre
opened a
children’s museum this year at
First
United
Methodist
Church
. It accompanies the student-run coffee
house created in 1999 to offer youth and young adults a safe place for
creative entertainment and fellowship.
Another site in
Binghamton
,
New York
, is working with two area universities
and city-planning officials to examine community needs and assets and to
plan improvements in local building conditions and public safety.
“We see the Shalom strategy as an exciting way to empower
congregations and communities,” said conference Shalom coordinator the
Rev. J. P. Duncan, who provides training, technical assistance, and
networking support to link sites to available resources. “It gave our
small-membership churches permission to see themselves as potential
catalysts for change through shared responsibility.
A small group of church members can put together a Shalom team with
participants from the community to identify resources and address
problems. They realize, ‘We don’t have to do it all by
ourselves.’”
Participation and leadership for the sites come from the area’s
diverse faith communities, said
Duncan
. Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Assemblies
of God, Muslim, Jewish, and Quaker communities are represented. Such
interfaith collaboration may present practical challenges, but it can also
yield opportunities and forge a collective vision of Shalom.
As conference Shalom coordinator,
Duncan
addresses these
and other concerns in the training he conducts for leaders of new sites.
He also gathers delegates from each site three times a year to
build relationships and share information, insights, and possible
solutions to one another’s problems.
The Rev. Jack Washington, who directs mission outreach for the
South Carolina Conference, provides similar support for the 19 Shalom
sites in his area. He trains new site teams and monitors the
progress of others. He also convenes a
steering committee of site leaders to plan and share ideas.
South Carolina
was one of the
first conferences to undergo Shalom training in 1994, the year after the
Los Angeles
model was
presented at the first Shalom Summit. Site teams benefit from a yearly
convocation that brings them together for networking, workshops, site
visits, worship, and a banquet to celebrate their varied ministries. More
than 200 adults and close to 200 youth attended the February 2002 event.
South Carolina
also operates a
literacy program in five counties that not only provides tutoring for
children and adults but also tries to nurture self-esteem and civic
involvement in community concerns. With
support from the governor’s office, a local college, and a literacy
council, the two-year-old program has improved students’ grades and
reading performance at all levels, according to
Washington
.
“Shalom has become a major part of our conference’s overall
mission program” said
Washington
, “because it
offers so many creative opportunities for churches to get involved and
make a real difference in the lives of their communities.”
Work That
Matters
In the Illinois Great Rivers Conference, home of
Decatur
’s United
Community of Shalom, one site has built a park and started a summer
festival to bring neighbors together, while others sponsor nutrition
programs for older adults, food pantries, a parish nurse, and youth
activities.
“Shalom does work that matters,” said the Rev. Pinckney Love,
conference coordinator, “and it affects people’s
lives deeply.” Like others, he sees the Shalom training experience as
the key to finding new ways of seeing and doing ministry, especially since
it brings together people who may have never before sat down with each
other to talk about their community and what it could become.
“We get them to tell their stories and discover how much they
have in common. Then the light-bulb goes on,” he said. “As trainers we
ask the questions that any community must be able to answer:
‘What are your assets, your spiritual and social needs and
strengths?’ We encourage
teams to address those questions before deciding what they want to do.”
Conference Support
Is Key
Communities of Shalom director Lynda Byrd and a national team of
consultants initially train Shalom teams and evaluate Shalom sites.
However, some conference coordinators learn to facilitate trainings and
other functions themselves through an advanced course titled Equipping
Shalom Communities.
“When it comes to keeping Shalom site teams motivated, trained,
and connected with the overall initiative, there is no single component
more important than strong, committed conference leadership,” said Byrd,
who works with the National Shalom Committee to oversee the global
program. “When participants at the individual sites recognize that they
are part of a greater ministry that is transforming lives in different
places, they gain tremendous energy.”
Sally Vonner of the North Texas
Conference, one of five
10-10-10
missionaries
serving conferences as full-time Shalom coordinators, attended the first
Equipping Shalom Communities training in 1999. She has since trained
leaders for at least four new sites and new leaders for existing sites.
“It’s a challenging task that requires much preparation and
availability to help sites stay on track and stay motivated to meet their
goals,” she said. “But far outweighing those challenges is the feeling
of triumph when we see Shalom teams become empowered and exhilarated as
they complete their training, graduate, and begin
to implement their Shalom plans.”
Local sites in
North Texas
provide summer and after- school
activities, family counseling, emergency assistance, senior-citizen
programs, and legal aid, counseling, citizenship classes, and other
services for recent immigrants, many of whom are undocumented.
Vonner’s office also provides several conference-wide programs,
including a popular youth entrepreneur training experience in which
teenagers learn to plan and run businesses and explores future career
opportunities.
Yet, Shalom faces challenges in
North Texas
, like other conferences.
“With all we’re doing to support our sites and other local
ministries, we still have to help others in the conference see what
we’re about,” said Vonner.
“We also struggle to develop stronger lay and clergy leadership
and to build up our financial resources for ministry.”
“It is important that conferences embrace Shalom and that leaders
understand the need and the tremendous potential this collaborative model
of ministry offers to churches and their communities,” said Byrd, who
also is assistant general secretary of the Community Ministries Program
Unit of the General Board of Global Ministries.
“With the unbelievable leadership, growth, and creativity that
has emerged through this initiative, Shalom sites can become greater
resources to each other by networking across the denomination,” she
added. “That is where we will shift the focus of this initiative in the
future, creating more partnerships to leverage what we have learned and
what we each have to offer.”
Shalom partnerships between the Baltimore-Washington and
Zimbabwe
conferences
and between the Texas Conference and the Methodist Church of Ghana will be
lifted up at the sixth Shalom Summit in
Washington
,
D.C.
,
December
12-15, 2002
. Conference coordinators and their teams from communities across
the
United States
will
share information and insights about their ministries—both trials and
triumphs—as they celebrate the initiative’s tenth anniversary. The
summit will also feature guest speakers, 14 workshops and study tracks,
and visits to four of the dozen local Shalom sites in the
Baltimore-Washington Conference.
“We have discovered that Shalom is the antidote, the spirit-led
solution for dysfunctional communities plagued by every disease and
disorder that afflicts our society,” said Washington Area Bishop Felton
Edwin May, host for the summit and the first chairman of the National
Shalom Committee from 1992 to 1996. “My only regret is that while our
communities are facing life-or-death circumstances, the church is treating
Shalom like all its other programs rather than giving it the preeminence
it deserves.”
Undoubtedly, the effort to raise the stature and support of
Communities of Shalom within annual conferences and across the
denomination will require broader networking and participation. That, in
turn, will require more trained leaders.
John W. Coleman, Jr., is co-director of
communications for the Baltimore–
Washington
Conference and a former writer and marketing-communications consultant for
the General Board of Global Ministries.
Beacons of Hope
“Communities of Shalom were the church’s response to racism and
injustice, to the lack of economic opportunity and hope that exploded in
violence 10 years ago. Today many of these communities are beacons of
hope. They have demonstrated that by utilizing the assets of the
community, collaborating with institutions and other partners, and
strategically planning to bring about systemic change, communities can be
transformed by the power of Christ through the church.”
Goals of a Community of
Shalom
Spiritual Growth:
To renew the Spirit of God among church and community members and help them
become more faithful witnesses to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Economic Development: To generate hope, stability, and economic growth in communities
through the creation of homes, businesses, skills, and employment among
residents.
Strengthened Multicultural Relationships: To
stimulate and strengthen relationships that cross barriers of race,
culture, religion, and economic class, and to help participants understand
and resolve the discord and disadvantages that often result from those
barriers.
Healing and Wholeness: To improve the health and welfare of communities, while helping
churches and residents to overcome the physical, emotional, spiritual, and
social damage caused by poverty, illness, and despair.
Principles of a Community
of Shalom
Mission
Evangelism: To live out, through word and deed,
the Gospel of Jesus Christ in love, forgiveness, mercy, and deliverance
and thereby to reach persons where they are, uplift them, and welcome them
into a new life of faith and righteousness.
Asset-Based Community Development: To identify, develop, and capitalize on local talents, skills,
relationships, and material assets as primary resources for generating
economic growth and confidence among residents.
Collaboration:
To engage diverse residents, organizations, institutions, businesses, and
congregations in working together painstakingly to pursue a common Shalom
vision of bringing healing, wholeness, unity, and development to their
community.
Systemic Change:
To substantially improve people’s lives and relationships by addressing
the causes, and not merely the consequences of poverty, injustice,
despair, and conflict. Those causes are often represented in the flawed
systems and institutions that control or mediate access to basic needs and
resources, and they must be challenged and reconciled through advocacy and
community empowerment.
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