Pennsylvania

We’ve left the buzz of NYC and travelled down to ‘country’ Pennsylvania. I don’t feel like I’m going to do these ministries/churches justice in my descriptions below, but time to blog is a rare thing atm so here goes:

Simplicity mission 

Allentown = poor, lots of single parent homes, substance abuse, higher crime rate than rest of the state, 250,000 people in urban area. Simplicity is an urban mission project – not a church 🙂

Beginnings: A dentist – Jeffrey McAuliffe – was tired of pew sitting and cultural Adventism and wanted to engage with his community and see if he could create a team to address these issues. He started with 6-7 young adults and started meeting and serving the people. Building relationships takes time so they looked for permanent solutions, not quick fixes.

So now after 3 years experimenting, Simplicity have 2 teams who volunteer – young adults and seasoned veterans, Adventists and non-Adventists. They pray each morning and find this practise very encouraging. Simplicity is now self-funded, relies on grants and donations from businesses and churches, but reports to the Conference. They have attempted a bunch of ministries, and continue serving via ESL classes, job search help, cleaning houses, garden clubs and COAL Sabbaths.

We visited the building they rent and base their Simplicity centre and Academy in. The Academy has one small class full of primary aged kids from poor and abusive families who are being loved and taught by an Adventist teacher. I got to hang with some of the kids and heard their love for the school/teacher and saw Simplicity’s plan in action.

Community ministry here is tough, but the Simplicity team are passionate and determined to make an impact. Here’s the kicker (as they say here): when Simplicity asked the community: “If we left would you miss us?” they received the reply: “Yes – you’ve helped provide for us!”

Carnegie Adventist Simple church – Pittsburg

Background: Dave and Belinda Kent had been missionaries in a remote part of PNG for 8 years but told us their ministry in Pittsburg was a tougher gig. Once called ‘hell with the lid off’, Pittsburg used to have the lights still on at 10-11am cause of pollution. Now it’s a very clean city – with 446 bridges – but native Pittsburgers don’t like crossing them and instead stay in their neighbourhood. It’s very tribal and there’s a very small Adventist presence, so the Kent’s moved into one of the neighbourhoods where a building had been purchased and began using it for church/community activities.

Outreach methods: Prayer walking the streets, meeting with community leaders (asking about needs and what had been tried), developed relationships and experimented. They managed to impact the kids in the neighbourhood, who’d ride 2 miles in snow to come to kids church, many who came from troubled backgrounds.

Learnings: Dave and Belinda had to adapt to the people who God gave to them. These were broken people with little Bible knowledge who weren’t even sure God was real. They tried to help people into a posture so they could hear from Jesus themselves – and realise His power. It is slow, difficult work – and traditional models of church don’t work – but they decided “If they go to hell, they’ll have to go through our love to get there.” What an awesome couple.

Harrisburg First SDA 

Harrisburg is an established church – the first we’ve visited on our trip – but it’s doing some good things. The Pastor – Dave Sanner – spoke about the constant need for fundraising to cover the maintenance issues of the building. Over a 2yr period the figure was something like $150,000 – and Dave’s time got caught up in this. Church buildings seem a bit like cars – they require a lot of maintenance over time.

The take away for me was the Cycle of Evangelism model they are following –vimeo.com/channels/iiwwebinar (and Eric Flickinger says don’t try and get the cycle perfect before moving onward). Every ministry they have focused on the question: ‘How is what we are doing reaching the lost?’ and each ministry came up with an answer/plan. The church is healthy when it’s guided by these things.