Learning from Congregational Based ministry with the Poor and Marganilized

Learning from Congregational Based ministry with the Poor and Marganilized

 

The information about congregational-based ministries with the poor and marganilized that I share is the accumulated experience of 15 years of congregational based ministry in inner city Birmingham, Alabama. I spent nine years as the pastor of a declining white congregation that finally died.  The remaining time is being spent as the organizing pastor of Church of the Reconciler a multicultural/multiracial store front congregation in downtown Birmingham.  Over 50 % of the participation and membership there is homeless and working poor. I am currently the pastor of that congregation.  Church of the Reconciler has been charted as a UMC congregation for two and 1/2 years.  The church has 153 members.  Average worship attendance is 65. The racial composition is 70 % black, 30% white.

 There are some fundamental issues that I think are essential to this work.  First the poor have very much to teach us about God and the work of the Spirit.  We must be learners from the poor. We are not in this work to save ourselves or to save the world.  As I understand that in the Gospel of Jesus God has already accomplished our salvation. We are saved by grace through faith.  There is no basis for spiritual arrogance of sense of specialness in working with the poor and marginalized.  God does not love us any more for this work than for any form of ministry lay or ordained in any context.  The goal of our work is not to make all the poor self-sufficient.  Our goal is to build beloved community in the sense that Martin King, Jr. used the term.  I understand our work to be building relationships, partnerships and allies.  We all live in one house.  It is also important that we recognize that we will have many disappointments and failures.  We must recognize these for what they are and acknowledge them as painfully real.  We cannot let them lead to despair, bitterness, anger, rage and destructive behavior.  Burn out is a constant reality and often we live on the edge of it.  We must keep our vision of agape’ love and live it in hope; basing our happiness on our hope in Christ.

 Another important foundation is that we build our work with a Biblical foundation.  We are not about a secular liberal social agenda although the work will look like it.  We must have at hand always the Biblical rational for our work and depend on the power of the Holy Spirit. We are about the servant call of God in Jesus Christ. 

Biblical interpretation is an important issue for this work.  I interpret the Bible from an incarnational perspective.  I am concerned about God in this world not some where else.  I view the Bible as not consistent but coherent.  God is at work in this world overcoming the powers of death through the community of faith.  William Stringfellow helped me clarify this view.  It is also, as I understand them to be the Biblical view of John Wesley and Martin Luther King, Jr.

 E. Stanley Jones in his book Restructuring the Church, After what Pattern has influenced my work in the congregational based ministry with the poor.  He taught me that the material in the Book of Acts about the selection of the deacons and the division of the jobs of ministry of word and ministry of serving tables that the Apostles developed is in the New Testament to show us what not to do.  He points out that once the Apostles retreated to the sanctuary in prayer and ministry of the word they were never heard from again.  He makes the powerful and important point that the power of the Spirit is manifest only when ministry of word and service are combined.  The traditional division between congregation and agency must be removed.  The congregation that worships must be the community that serves and the persons served must be the members and potential members of the congregation.  Lay ministers who are homeless staff our clothes closet, teach Sunday School, and serve in many ways at Reconciler.  E. Stanley Jones points to the church at Antioch of Syria as the Biblical model for this work.

 The leadership of the congregation must be indigenousness leadership and must reflect the culture or cultures of the community served.  This is clearly reflected in the church at Antioch of Syria.

Issues of racial and class contamination and privilege must be confronted by the Biblical revelation that we should call no person profane or unclean.  In the work of congregational-based ministry with the poor we must continually make visits to Joppa and Simon the Tanner’s house with Peter.  We must learn with Nicodemus that a person does not have to enter into their mother’s womb a second time and be born physically as a certain gender or race to be acceptable to God.

 Howard Thurman’s book Jesus and the Disinherited has also influenced my work. This ministry with the poor and marganilized is basically a spiritual work and has to do with the question Howard Thurman answers in this book, “What does Jesus say to someone whose back is against the wall?”   This work is a congregational-based struggle for the spirit of the poor.  The poor and marganilized, like all of us are in bondage to the fear and power of death. Therefore the ministry has to be centered on baptism and the Lord’s Supper. The poor need to know they are somebody.  The poor need to know that there is a place for them at the table and that there is enough bread and drink for their salvation.  The poor also need services of healing.  They, like all of us have been so deeply wounded by the oppressive society they are shame bound.  They feel flawed and defective, not fully human.  The poor also need food and clothing. They also need the multigenerational work of self-awareness of the powers of death that confront them.  The preaching in a congregational ministry for poor and marganilized needs to be directed toward conversion and new birth for rich and poor alike.  There needs to be so much Jesus preached, taught and spiritually present that people will be converted to agape love or leave.  Spiritual discernment of the participants needs to be developed so that the measure of participation is righteousness; the love of God, self and neighbor and not any human categories of wealth, gender, race, class or sexual orientation.  All need to be judged by the content of their character.

Community development corporations must be developed as soon as leadership emerges.  These CDCs must address all the needs of the poor from legal services, relating to the criminal justice system, education, skill development, creating employment and housing.

 The presence of oppression is so deep and historically sustained in our culture that the poor have developed powerful and creative use of deceit and manipulation to survive.  This is not a choice but a required tool of survival for the poor.  At the front end of any new ministry it will be faced by the predatory poor;  the small percentage of the poor who are hardened and skilled at this survival tool.  Many poor and rich are addicted to crack or alcohol.   They do not see or understand the vision of an inclusive congregation. They only see an opportunity to deplete your physical or spiritual assets and live off of the ministry until it dies.  I have seen this happen to many well-intended ministries in Birmingham.  It is absolutely necessary to set clear and strong boundaries and develop the ability to say NO!  All congregational based ministries with poor and marganilized need to develop recovery ministries for addiction to racial superiority, wealth and drugs.

 The whole issue of financial support is a major question.  Pastors must have a long-term commitment and a willingness to serve at minimum salary their whole ministry.  There has to be a commitment on the part of the annual conference to supplement salary and program.  Larger financially stronger congregations must provide financial and leadership support with out patronizing control.  Stewardship must be a strong emphasis in the congregation.  What 10 people spend on a cocaine addiction would support a congregation. 

 The pastor must live with the pain of constant suffering and need; balancing lifestyle and discipline so that she/he can stay in the journey for the long walk. 

 The work in congregational-based ministries with the poor and marganilized is not about making good slaves or low wage corporate employees.  It is about the adventure of the Kingdom of God where righteousness, justice and peace embrace so the congregation cannot be in bondage to the corporate interest.  Congregational survival is not the goal but Christian discipleship in the social justice tradition. These congregations must speak truth to power knowing that the truth will set us free.

R. Lawton Higgs, Sr.

December 3, 1998