New Orleans presence in line with Mennonite Church USA presence

Churches Supporting Churches connects Gulf churches with resources of broader church

Imitate the compassion of Christ. That’s Steve Brown’s message when he talks about helping New Orleans people and churches as they recover from Hurricane Katrina. Brown is the Mennonite Church USA representative to Churches Supporting Churches (CSC) and currently serves as its vice-president.

Brown knows about following Jesus even when the world does not. Through his experience with CSC, he’s learning about the compassion of Christ.

“The compassion side of me moves me to respond. The pity side of me simply says, ‘I feel sorry for you,’ but I do nothing. Compassion compels me to stay with the hurting brother or sister and not leave until he or she stops hurting,” Brown says.

Calvary Community Church, Hampton, Va., where Brown serves on the pastoral staff, supports and empowers his work with CSC. He goes to New Orleans one weekend each month to meet with the CSC working group—something he’s done for more than three years.

“Christ had compassion which moved him to do something. He did not leave a person or a community until something happened. Christ stayed until a person was fed, healed, encouraged or even raised from the dead,” Brown says.

Many do-gooders who responded immediately to the Katrina disaster in 2005 left within a short time. Most government funds intended for use in New Orleans have never been delivered. But, Mennonite Church USA, as well as Mennonite Disaster Service and Mennonite Central Committee, according to Brown, have had a “blessed presence in New Orleans since Day One.”

“Our presence in New Orleans lines up with our presence as Mennonite Church USA. We want to be missional as we help and bring hope to this community that needs much healing,” he says.

This healing involves more than food and shelter. CSC has outlined strategies to assist at least 36 African-American congregations in 12 areas of New Orleans where Katrina destroyed or seriously damaged their facilities. The strategy focuses on rebuilding communities.

“The initial goal was to get 360 churches to partner with these 36 congregations in New Orleans, but the wheels of partnership have turned slowly,” he explains. At least 25 New Orleans congregations still need CSC partners. Only a handful of Mennonite Church USA congregations have committed to regular financial support for CSC-designated churches.

Knowing how to help so many churches who have so much need is part of the challenge. Getting more Mennonite Church USA congregations to commit to regular support is perhaps another issue. Brown wonders if the reason churches are dragging their feet is because top-heavy leadership styles hinder congregations trying to make decisions. He contends that churches spend too much time processing good ideas.

Brown offers an example from his African-American tradition. A church wants to build a $500,000 educational wing. “The bishop tells the congregation, ‘We are going to build, and this is what it costs.’ We don’t wait until we have $499,999.99 in the bank. What we do is paint us some shovels gold and get hard harts and the next week we are digging in the ground. Is there processing, vision, prayer? Yes. But we won’t take years to begin.”

In the case of the New Orleans churches which are all African-American congregations, they need help now.

Rebuilding!

“If you’re on oxygen, you can’t wait until tomorrow,” Brown says.

Both financial help and other kinds of expertise are needed.

“You may not be called to preach or do mission work, but all of us are called to reconcile people back to God. This is one of the ways we do that, by letting them know that the world has not forgotten New Orleans, that we will make a difference,” he says.

Two CSC supporting congregations are Manhattan Mennonite Fellowship in New York City (Atlantic Coast Conference) and Koinonia Mennonite Church in Chandler, Ariz. (Pacific Southwest Mennonite Conference).

Both churches are supporting the New Orleans Bible Fellowship. Katrina wiped out its building. The congregation currently meets in the worship space of another congregation, a former bowling alley. The New Orleans church is trying to raise money to purchase land and build a new church. They hope to relocate to eastern New Orleans where there are now few churches. Since Hurricane Katrina, the congregation has begun new outreach programs, feeding the homeless and visiting a nursing home regularly.

Sylvia Shirk Charles, Manhattan Mennonite Fellowship pastor, with Denise Parker and Pastor Leonard Parker in New Orleans.

“I hope there are eight more churches out there willing to join us in supporting the New Orleans Bible Fellowship,” says Sylvia Shirk Charles, Manhattan Mennonite Fellowship pastor.

She and others from their congregation visited their CSC partner congregation last April. They attended a worship service and helped the New Orleans church serve a meal to some of the 12,000 homeless people in the city. Since then, the pastors have maintained contact by e-mail and phone.

“As a congregation, we are learning that even though we are a relatively small church, we can become involved in meaningful ways with the needs of the world,” Charles says.

Similarly, it’s more than money that binds the New Orleans church to Koinonia Mennonite Church in Arizona, says Koinonia pastor Rich Sisco.

“What has been meaningful has been the person-to-person contact that has demonstrated a connection with people who are at a distance—not only geographically, but culturally and perhaps even theologically,” Sisco says.

Koinonia took on the CSC project energetically. They realized that much of their church’s financial and emotional investment in mission and service had reached beyond U.S. borders.

“Here was a need in our own country on a scale that we often think of happening in other places,” Sisco says. “As I know Koinonia, we aren’t people developing programs and exporting them to other churches. Ours is more the person-to-person contact—the support, fellowship and prayer relationships that connect us to others.”

The Arizona church has also taken a fresh look at itself.

“New Orleans Bible Fellowship does a lot with even less than what we have. They have less staff time, less space and fewer members. This experience challenges us to pay less attention to measuring our strength and more attention to understanding needs and doing what we can to meet them,” Sisco says.

Jesus’ words in the Gospel of John guide Steve Brown, and perhaps these churches, in understanding the sacrifices one makes in order to gain the joys of living beyond oneself.

“Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13 NIV

“Literally, we need to give up some of our creature comforts—to put aside our own lives and to care for others. This is what we in the Mennonite Church are all about,” Brown says.

June Galle Krehbiel is a freelance writer from Moundridge, Kan.