Germinating and Growing
Easter has come and the season of Resurrection lingers with us. God is making all things new. I'd like to tell you about a few of the places where we see his resurrection power at work here on the east side of Dayton.
A Day Hub for Men in Recovery
In the week between Christmas and the New Year, I (Pastor Zach) received a call from the Director of Whole Truth Ministries (WTM), Kyle Shaw. WTM is a Christ-centered addiction recovery and sober living ministry. At that time, they were regularly offering Intensive Outpatient Counseling to addicts in our building as well as holding various other meetings here throughout the week.
Kyle had a proposition for us - WTM had too many men early in their recovery process who did not have constructive things to occupy their time during the day. What if, he wondered, WTM brought those men from their various sober houses to our church each day from 9am to 2pm and treated our church as a day hub where the men could meet, fellowship, and then be set to work on service projects both here at the church and beyond?
When I brought this opportunity to our Leadership Team the reaction was (as you might imagine) immediate and unanimous excitement - this smacked of the kingdom to us! Less than two weeks later the church was functioning as a day hub for the men of Whole Truth Ministries.
We thank the Lord for the many blessings that have come to our church and community through these brothers. They've helped clean and reorganize multiple spaces in our church related to our helping ministries. They've picked up trash around the church. They've helped repair items and facilities. They've gotten more intimately engaged in the Friday ministries here, checking in and registering neighbors who come for help, running supplies between the uppermost and bottommost levels of the church building, greeting others, sorting and racking, and much more!
Comings and Goings Around the Lenten Season
Play can be a holy thing. Having fun together is one mark of a healthy, Spirit filled community. And it was with such thoughts in mind that we hosted a Superbowl party in our basement this February on the cusp of Lent. It ended up being a hit especially among our homeless friends. It was a bit messy at times, but what a privilege to host Jesus in our midst! One friend was talking to himself in the bathroom for a long time before he fell asleep on a toilet; a couple conked out at the tables where they sat. Others ate (and ate and ate) of the meatballs, subs, and other foods we set out. Most just joined in watching the game, laughing, and talking together as they enjoyed a pastime that would not have been possible for them apart from the church's welcome.
Then, on Ash Wednesday, we hosted a district wide service for the Church of the Brethren. More than 75 people from 8 different congregations (including a couple BIC churches too) gathered for a beautiful time of reflection, repentance, and renewal. We shared stories of times when we had seen God work in and through our failures, remembering that God's power is made perfect in our weakness! We concluded by receiving the ashen mark of Christ's cross on our foreheads, a mark of grief, repentance, and, ultimately, of hope!
And, at the other end of Lent, we had one of our most exuberant and joyful Easters ever. We had at least 107 people in attendance - our biggest service ever! We had an easter egg hunt for neighborhood kids, a blow-out breakfast, and a wonderfully celebratory service in which we savored the truth that Jesus lives and, because he lives, all that is wrong, evil, and broken in this world is coming undone.
Helping Ministries
We hosted another workday on our garage to move it further along in its transition to a proper pantry building and saw another fantastic turnout. We're learning that such projects always take longer than you think they will! We didn't finish phase 1 yet, but we're closer than ever and working still.
Our Friday ministries just keep growing. We've started having regular planning meanings to manage the chaos and we've begun more closely tracking who comes, what their needs are, and other bits of information. In March we helped 159 households with clothing or households goods. Our numbers are less precise with pantry packs, but we helped at least as many households with pantry items. Meanwhile, our partners with Food for the Journey project served more than 2000 meals from our church in that month. God did all of this in a church that currently has 28 members and an attendance that averages around 45 on Sundays... counting our homeless friends who come just for breakfast or end up sleeping in a pew or on a couch in our back room!
Community Development Work
Chi, meanwhile, arranged meetings with the county treasurer, the county prosecutor, and our local wing of Habitat for Humanity (among others) as she continues to work toward our long-term community development goals. There is a possibility that we will soon be able to reap from the city - for free - a triple wide lot across the street from the church which we would initially use for a community garden and which could be developed in coming years to host a number of development projects we are dreaming about.
Dami, for his part, is working with Chi, Susan, and myself to develop a plan for the creation of a nonprofit development corporation which might help us access funds and pull from the expertise of outside persons in pursuing the development of our neighborhood.
How to Help
Please pray for us as we deal with the fact that our ministries to the needy are growing significantly faster than the number of mature disciples in our midst to help with the work. The harvest in plentiful but the workers are few... so pray for God to send more workers and to sustain those that are here.
Pray for us as we continue taking our first steps into development work.
Pray for Pastor Susan, whose health is struggling and who, despite that, continues to do invaluable work for the church.
Pray for financial provision for our church... that's always a challenge here and we've had some unexpected expenses come up lately.
If you are in a position to contribute financially, please consider giving at the link at the bottom of this email. If you encounter this newsletter in some other form, just head to our website - eastdaytonfellowship.net - and look for the giving page.
Thank you so much for following along, for praying, and for giving!
Sincerely,
Pastor Zach