Connecting Ministries - Sojourner Truth Ministries Celebrates 20 Years of Caring for Williamsport Neighbors

Photo courtesy of Angelique Labadie

Rev. Victoria Rebeck, Director of Connecting Ministries

A room full of Williamsport neighbors slogged through torrential rain on September 22 to the warm home of Sojourner Truth Ministries. They came to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of this United Methodist ministry that serves the area’s most vulnerable.

While the mission, which meets in a former church building, offers a breadth of opportunities to the neighbors, it may be best known for its community lunch, offered six days a week. Food for the body—a hot meal, served family style—is served along with food for the soul, a time of prayer and an uplifting message. 

“Our guests can have a special meal with their families,” says Pat Bole, a long-time supporter of the ministry. “This is home for many people.”

Rev. Angelique Labadie-Cihanowyz, a Nazarene clergywoman, oversees the ministry in her role as executive director. An energetic, visionary leader, she is well known for her compassion. Children of all ages ran up to talk to her during the celebration.

“My takeaway from working here is that poverty is complex, with multifaceted barriers,” Rev. Labadie-Cihanowyz says. “And I have the honor and responsibility to find a way to connect with every single person who comes to us, to show the love of Christ and preach the Good News through actions and words.” 

In addition to the weekday meals, Sojourner Truth offers a number of compassionate and empowering ministries.

After-School Kids (ASK) meets twice a week to provide a safe place for children to receive nurturing, homework help, one-on-one attention, Bible lessons, and a meal. More programming is offered to children in the summer. Neighbors can stop by for emergency food packages, hygiene items, socks, gloves, hats, and blankets. A sewing group that met in the building created a large quilt depicting Noah’s ark, which now graces a wall at the center. A Bible study meets on Tuesday mornings.

Dinner Church gathers on Saturdays for an abbreviated worship service and a meal. 

“The goal is to make it feel like Thanksgiving dinner,” Rev. Labadie-Cihanowyz says. Visitors from other churches sit down at the table with the guests, engaging in conversation and getting to know each other. Building relationships and recognizing the guests’ dignity is as important as the meal.

“You can rely on these people,” says Paul, a regular luncheon guest whose story is featured on the organization’s website. Like many people, he needs to rely on the center to provide a meal every day, not just once or twice a month. “These are real people, real church,” he says. According to the website, Paul “came in for food, but received acceptance, help, love, and is being transformed by Jesus.”

Twenty years ago, a group of United Methodist clergy and laypeople felt called to start a meaningful ministry in Williamsport. They spent time walking around the city and praying. One of the walkers had a vision wheel with a center hub with spokes radiating out from it.

Sojourner Truth Ministries became that hub, and churches in the area became the spokes that assist the ministries. STM united the churches in shared ministry; together they were able to offer more than they would have individually.

On occasion they engage Hillside Catering, which hires some folks in the STM community.

“We’re not afraid to try new things,” Bole says. The board is dreaming of future ministries such as literacy classes for adults, rooms on Friday nights for Twelve Step groups, and perhaps serving as hub for gathering materials for Mission Central, the Mechanicsburg-based warehouse for medical supplies, flood recovery kits, and other missions materials.

Soon, House of Hope will open. This will provide a short-term, communal home for women coming out of homelessness. The women will also learn practical skills in budgeting to work toward sustainability 

As a United Methodist Ministry, STM welcomes donations and volunteer help. Visit the website stmwilliamsport.org, Facebook page www.facebook.com/stmwilliamsport or email sojournertruthministries@gmail.com to learn more about how you can be a part of this life-saving, relationship-building Beloved Community.

Connecting Ministries: Blown Away by Pentecost

Rev. Victoria Rebeck (left) and her friend Jerioth Gichigi, a United Methodist Deacon from Kenya.

Rev. Victoria Rebeck, Director of Connecting Ministries

Now that Easter has revived our gratitude for new life, what do we do with this great gift?

Pentecost tells us. We take the power of the Holy Spirit and follow God’s lead—even if we do not know where she leads us.

Looking back on it, from the perspective of 2,000 years later, the church’s first Pentecost seems exciting. Tongues of flame landing on everyone! They can preach in languages they never learned! What a glorious sending of Christ’s followers into the world.

When I think about this story, however, I imagine that the incident could have been  scary. We’re sitting indoors and a violent wind blows through the room? Close the windows! Flames on the top of our heads? Get a bucket of water! I just hope the doors open outward so we can make a run for it.

As frightening as this may have been, we’ve learned from the Bible that God does some of God’s best work when our world is shaken up.

We’ve been in a year of disruption together. We’ve had to quickly change to a more constricted life. The end is not actually in sight. Yet God still gives us the power of the Holy Spirit and expects us to reach the world.

It’s a holy disruption, however. It’s opened up new spaces for the wind of the Holy Spirit pass through.

As difficult as this time has been for us, it’s been more challenging for others.

Last month I received a text from my friend the Rev. Jerioth Gichigi, who is  a United Methodist deacon from Kenya. (Texting is one of their affordable forms of communication.) Though Kenya’s economy is one of the most developed in eastern and central Africa, about a third of Kenyans live below the poverty line. The internet is not universally accessible. COVID-19 seemed to be easing at the beginning of this year, but now infections are rising again, and people are limited to their homes. Church buildings are closed, and no one knows when they might reopen.

While we begrudgingly rough it with online worship, that luxury is not available to them.

“But we are trusting,” Jerioth says. And they are.

Before this, however, a great windstorm had come through their town and demolished the building of her congregation, the First United Methodist Church of Moheto.

A wind that destroys church buildings is but a puff compared to the Holy Spirit. Drawing on donations from United Methodists from other parts of the world, she and the church members are buying stones to reconstruct their church building. They have faith that God continues to work with and through them. Neither pandemics nor storms can separate them from the love of God in Jesus Christ.

Their lives are severely upended, though they were already precarious. But they have the Holy Spirit, and that gives them the power to spread Christ’s love, in any situation.

Pentecost reminds us that God often uses disruption to clear the way for something new. That is what it takes sometimes: the familiar to which we cling is swept away, making us available for something else. God was starting something new.

Our Kenyan United Methodist brothers and sisters know that God is empowering them to do something new. Let’s welcome the Spirit to blow away the old so that we can share God’s love in ways we never imagined.

Connecting Ministries: Future Trends That Will Shape Church Ministry

Rev. Victoria Rebeck, Director of Connecting Ministries

If we’ve learned anything over the past year, it’s that the world can change in what seems like an instant. And the fact that the pandemic continues even after a year proves that we cannot simply hunker down and wait until we can go back to what we were doing. We could do that—but if our aim is to invite, form, and send disciples to help transform the world into the realm of God, our old familiar ways won’t get us there.

We also learned last year how difficult it is to predict the future. But we can observe trends that could help us invite and welcome new people into a relationship with God and God’s people.

Here are a few trends I’ve learned from a variety of sources and some possible implications for churches.

Story and experience

Virtual reality—computer-generated simulation of a three-dimensional environment that allows people to interact with it in a way that seems physically real—will continue to grow, writes Prasenjit Roy in “Marketing in 2025: Five key trends that will drive the future.”

I’m not suggesting we abandon reality in favor of virtual reality. But we can adapt two aspects of this technology: storytelling and customized experiences. The church has something real to offer the world. If virtual reality orients our culture toward story and custom experiences, the church can offer these through engagement with real people.

Story is something that should come naturally to the church. After all, Jesus frequently taught by using stories. Story, unlike simple instruction or direction, draws people into being full participants in their spiritual growth. 

Story also communicates wisdom. While knowledge is information (and that is necessary), wisdom entails deeper virtues of gratitude, wonder, humility, forgiveness, and more. It’s obtained through life experience and transmitted through media such as art, music, drama, and story.

In some ways this also speaks to “customization.” Story communicates on many angles. The hearer brings to her listening her own experiences and concerns. The gathered group listens to the same story, but each person may walk away having learned something different, based on God’s leading.

Furthermore, each person has their own stories from their own lives. When given a safe place in which to tell others of these experiences, people learn from each other. Relationships are strengthened among people and with God.

Moments

Churches habitually turn to events and gatherings to teach or otherwise communicate. In his “6 Disruptive Church Trends that Will Rule 2020,” pastor and author Carey Nieuwhof observes people today have different expectations for gatherings. These still have value; we simply need to use them for different purposes, he says.

Information is much more easily obtained in the age of the internet, so that need not be a significant part of a gathering. People do not have to be in the same room to obtain information, and they are less likely to come to an event—even weekly worship—for that purpose. However, people will still gather for “movements, moments, and missions,” as Nieuwhof calls them.

Worship and sacraments have long been the church’s way to connect people with God and each other. Avoid letting Intentional, reverent, creative, and thoughtfully planned worship get bogged down by information-sharing or announcements. 

Further, don’t use music primarily as a tool to energize worshipers or otherwise influence a group mood. Rather, incorporate art and music to illuminate who God is and how God acts in the world.

This is also true when inviting people to explore Scripture or engage in compassion ministries together. “People don’t just want to know what’s true; they want to know what’s real,” Nieuwhof says. “And what’s real is deeper than just an idea—it’s an experience.”

This suits us as Methodists. After all, Charles and John Wesley, the founders of Methodism, both had “heart-warming” experiences of assurance from God and considered such experiences important. Why not reclaim this?

Mission

Nieuwhof reminds us that our task is to invite people not only to attend worship, but to take part in the church’s mission. Many people, especially young adults, are not looking for ways to fill their calendars with activities and committee meetings. However, they do want to make a positive difference in the world. The church calls this mission, and this passion among young adults is a gift from God that the church can embrace and harness.

How is your church making God’s realm a reality in your community? Providing groceries for school children to bring home to their families who would not otherwise have enough? Organizing visits to legislators to call for public policy that would honor God’s good creation or confront discriminatory housing practices? There are people, including young people, who are eager to take part in this.

Movements

Don’t assume that your church has to invent these opportunities. It is likely other organizations in your community are addressing them. Demonstrate your church’s commitment to the wellbeing of the wider community by collaborating with these efforts, recommends Dr. Penny Edgell, a prominent sociologist of religion. (These are what Nieuwhof calls “movements.”)

These are opportunities not only to follow the prophets’ instructions to love our neighbors, but also provide us a chance to build relationships with our neighbors. Make sure to meet those who are attending, particularly those who are not part of your church. Listen to their interests and concerns. This information will help your church know how to provide meaningful community that introduces others to the unconditional and life-changing love of God.

People are finding out about events largely online, and particularly through social media, Edgehill told me. This winter, I helped welcome visitors to Mount Asbury’s Christmas lights display. When we asked our guests how they found about the event, many said they saw it on a community Facebook page or received a friend’s recommendation. Be sure to use these ways (among others) to invite others.

Ultimately, we hope to help people experience the power of God’s grace that transforms lives. Moments, movements, and mission cannot manufacture life transformation, but they can set a hospitable environment for people to encounter God and find a home with God’s people. 

Our mission is the same as it has been for 2,000 years. Regardless of what the future holds for The United Methodist Church or the world around us, our mission remains. Over the centuries, the church has adapted to change in order to stay faithful to its mission. This is the church’s task in all times. When we have a missionary passion to bring God’s love and grace to their neighbors, though words and actions, we will learn new cultural languages to tell the “old, old story” of God’s love.

Connecting Ministries: Going Home by Another Way

 

By Rev. Victoria Rebeck, Director of Connecting Ministries

“Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.” When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. . . . And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.” [Matthew 2:7-9, 12]

Some years ago I was a regular volunteer at Elm Creek Park Reserve, a 4,900-acre county park in Minnesota. From January through April, I would hike off-path and record signs of birds of prey nesting. One afternoon during my first year in the program, I wandered into an area I had never visited before. I crossed an old beaver dam over a wetland and climbed the hill on the other side. Once I got to the top of the hill, I saw that there was a little bit of a valley in the middle, so I trudged down to explore it. 

After a bit I decided it was time to head back. I looked around and realized that I had no idea how to retrace my steps. My boots had not left tracks on the frozen ground. The land inclined all around me; on which part of the hill did I enter? I had not thought to watch my compass as I hiked. A bit of panic came over me. It was late afternoon, and the sun was on the horizon. What was I to do?

As I thought about it, I remembered that though the park was large, it was bounded by roads. Regardless of which direction I headed, I would arrive at a road. From there, I would know how to return to the nature center. There were obstacles along the way—redosier dogwood stands, more wetlands, a creek—but this time I watched my compass, got around the obstacles, resumed my direction, and came to a road. I was really not as far off as I feared, and I returned before dark.

I got home by another way. In a sense, I have often gone home by another way. I’ve lived in four different states as I accepted new job opportunities. These new places eventually became home—even though I had arrived there by leaving home. As they say, change is the one constant in life.

If we look back at the trajectory of our lives, we will see that expectations and reality did not always match up. And if we look at the past 12 months, we will see just how little we knew about the coming days. Most of our plans would have to be set aside. Once we were not able to safely meet in our church buildings or visit the sick or attend funerals or take our families to joyous Christmas celebrations, we had to start from scratch. Was it still possible to be “church” without worshiping together in a sanctuary? The meaning of the word “church” has become so tied to physical structure that some couldn’t imagine they could practice their faith outside of a church building.

The familiar brings comfort; I know this well from having to leave home so many times. One of the wonderful blessings of church buildings is that they become a second home to us. I was once appointed to a small church that after a couple of years merged with a larger one. It was a good and healthy choice that is still bearing fruit. But the last time I left that building, I felt sad. I would miss it for all the ways I met God through God’s people there. And I had been there only a short time.

However, not every Christian has regularly worshiped in a church building. For example, the earliest Christians often met in people’s homes, usually over a meal (as Acts 2:46 suggests).

It has been the extra-hard work of our clergy this past year, who often felt lost in unfamiliar woods, that shows us that church exists even when not confined to a building. God is not trapped between four walls. As long as we’ve been willing to seek God by another road, God has been with us.

Those who have been experimenting with new and safer ways to lead church use the church’s mission as their compass. They know that the purpose of the church is not to stay ever the same. It exists to continue Jesus’s mission of compassion, justice, and love of God and neighbor; to invite new people into the body of Christ. Indeed, we sometimes need sanctuary and comfort. This rest is intended to strengthen us for our everyday calling of representing Christ in the world. 

Yes, we are going home by another way. We find it, as did the wise men, by listening to God.

Our clergy are tired, approaching exhaustion. Clergy, I encourage you to use our coaches. Your conversations with them are completely confidential. They will listen to you and help you think through strategies for leading without burning out. (Contact Kim Shockley at kshockley@susumc.org to connect to a coach.) Church folks, I urge you to give your clergy more time for spiritual renewal. And if an important ministry needs to happen, pray over whether God is calling you to lead it. 

In the coming months, the Susquehanna Conference will make available some prerecorded complete worship services. These can give clergy a break from planning and leading worship and preparing and preaching a sermon. Your church can use these for the Sundays of your choosing. Find the January worship service listed as “Rev. Gary Shockley Worship Video” at susumc.org/worship-resources. A February option will be available at the beginning of that month. 

Listen for God’s voice. It may be leading us down another road. God will be there for us.