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Category: Word on the Street

  • Street Church: Bearing Fruit

    Friends,

    I spent a good part of my Saturday helping one of our neighbors get her apartment back in order after a long period of isolation. When I arrived, Chris who lives next door to her was outside sanding and prepping his door to match the others in the building where they live. “Let me know if I can help with anything,” he hollered as we carried bags of cleaning supplies into her apartment.

    Later on, I had pulled one of the rugs out on the sidewalk to steam clean it. Another of our neighbors came walked up on me. Between the music and the volume of the carpet cleaner, neither one of us noticed the other until we were practically on top of each other. “I didn’t see you there,” she said. “Do you need any help?”

    It wasn’t too long after that, that Wayne came walking by. I haven’t seen Wayne in a while because he’s in housing now and hasn’t been feeling well. We were excited to see each other and both stopped in our tracks to catch up for a few minutes. About that time, my husband pulled up with a table I have been meaning to have delivered to the woman I was helping. Wayne jumped to it, “Man, can I help you with that,” he said. Rushing over to help move the table into the house.

    Before I left, the woman I spent had my day helping was in such better spirits knowing the improved condition of her apartment. “You’ve worked so hard to help me,” she said as I was leaving. “Can I help you with anything?”

    Now, please know that I do not make a habit of loving my neighbor because I expect anything in return. But after that small window of experiencing so many offers from our neighbors to become part of loving others, I couldn’t help but be proud of the culture and community that we are building.

    Chelsea, brave soul that she is, left me in charge of Street Church this weekend. Something about graduating from Seminary and all. Please drop her a note of congratulations if you get a chance. She has worked so hard, especially this last year as she has taken on Micah and her final year of classes, in the midst of a pandemic none the less!

    Thankfully, she left me with an amazing team of leaders who have been increasingly coming alongside our neighbors in making Street Church happen every week. With Lew (Christ Lutheran) and Rachel as greeters, Tim (New Hope UMC) and our neighbors who showed up early to set up, Carol and Gerry (Fredericksburg UMC) working with Caitlin and Marvin in the kitchen, Rick (Common Ground) driving the bus with Jimmy Joe as navigator, all I really had to do was show up and say something important. We are truly blessed to be among to bear witness to a community that is so eager to share their gifts and respond anywhere that help is needed.

    My Saturday experience and Sundays culmination of talents was really good inspiration for a reflection on John 17:6-19, the prayer Jesus prays to God on his disciples behalf as he is getting ready to ascend into heaven. While Christ will no longer be physically present with the disciples, the mission continues. And not just for those who remained immediately after the crucifixion, but all those who come to be part of the body of Christ revealed in how we live and tell the story to others.

    I hear Christ saying three distinct things in the John 17 prayer.

    1. You gave them to me. God and the world are now intertwined as one because of Christ’s death and resurrection.
    2. The world did not believe me, and it is not likely to believe those who follow me.
    3. Protect those who follow me, “so that we they may be one, as [Jesus and God] are one”

    Indirectly, Christ’s prayer reminds me of the parable of the sower. Seeds were scattered rocky ground, along the path, among the thorns and in the good soil. When that seed is planted it intertwines with the earth and produces something new. It is harder for a seed to grow in the thorns and among the rocks; they don’t last as long and some seeds don’t make it. But that doesn’t mean we can eliminate the rocks, the thorns and so forth. They are a part of our world. But if God is like the seed and we are the soil that receives God, that binding process between seed and soil is exactly what you see when Christ came into our world. Christ was really, really good soil for God to dwell in. He bore fruit and multiplied. Then he planted God’s vision (seeds) in 12 other people, who also took it upon themselves to multiply again and again all the way down to you and me and our neighbors.

    There is a reason God has laid it on the hearts of those of us involved in Street Church to lean into the mantra of “gather, sow, grow.” The gardening process has so much to say about God’s hope for the Micah Community. It is a vision that so many of our least cannot see for themselves. Trauma, loss, heartache and disability has often robbed them of believing there is anything beautiful or fruitful that they can offer the world. The tilling and weeding and fertilizing that happens through Street Church, however, is slowly but surely revealing that every last one of them is capable of being good soil. There is strength and protection in community, in a body of Christ, which prays often the Jesus prayer “that they may have Christ’s joy made complete in themselves.” That the birds, the thorns, the stay out of their way as they seek to spread more seeds. That they be watered well and have enough sunlight. That they too bear fruit and multiply, hopefully without the dangers Jesus faced.

    As we closed yesterday, twelve of our neighbors joined me at the front as I offered an illustration of what it meant to continue the work of Christ. From the same flower pot that I had scattered seeds and talked of the unification between God and humanity, made known in the death and resurrection of Christ, I pulled a small flower for each who volunteered.

    “Will you take these share it with others?” I asked them. “Will each of you take this little plant to someone you know and say, “Friend, I have been leaning the most incredible story about a man named Jesus. It changed my life and every Sunday I get together with other folks who feel the same way. Would you come be part of our community?”

    The chatter of who they wanted to share it with ensued. The lady at the motel. The man at the convenience store. Rachel’s little boy Elijah later gave it to his grandma. I asked them to be the messengers, the disciples of Jesus Christ spreading more seeds from the powerful love that is growing in this community. warned them that their offer may not always be accepted. I told them I would worry for the care they would give to the task. They promised to cherish the little sapling and share it with others. Then we prayed together for God’s guidance and protection as they continued the work of Christ.

    I hope you will pray too. Pray with us and for us, all of us at Street Church, as the confidence and voice of our least takes root and bursts through the soil of our community. I think its going to bear fruit like our community has never seen before.

    Thanks be to God,

    Meghann

  • Street Church: Seeing God’s Children

    Some of you may remember the kind, gentle spirit that could be found in our friend and neighbor Shiferaw Tessima. Shiferaw was known well by community dinner groups. He was a standard presence at the cold weather shelter for many years; and for a long time, he lived in his car. If you’ve been involved with the Micah Community for any amount of time and you don’t remember Shiferaw, it was probably because he was so incredibly quiet and well put together that he could easily go unnoticed. Shiferaw preferred it that way, as his existence for most of the years we knew him was plagued by a persistent belief that something or someone was seeking to harm him. He often turned to God and lived a deeply spiritual life in order to ward off whatever he was concerned would bring ill will. Because he kept so much to himself and rarely shared the specifics of his concerns, we may never know what caused his very unexpected death last week. He was only 56.

    We always knew Shiferaw had led a pretty productive life, He was a legal permanent resident from Ethiopia. He was well read and a deep studier of world religions and theology, particularly Christianity. For much of the time I knew him, he worked in various cleaning jobs, including at Mary Washington Hospital. But there was always something mysterious about what had happened (we still don’t know what) to take him away from his family, his country and all of the achievements he once had; and what left him homeless in our community for many years. I didn’t know, for instance, until I cleaned out his apartment this week that Shiferaw had been an airline mechanic and traveled all over the world. These are just a few of the photos I found in cleaning out his home this week.

    world

    Many times, when our neighbors pass away, there is either not a next of kin or it takes some time to find the next of kin. Shiferaw has pages and pages of phone numbers, from Africa to the US, but so far no one has been identified to claim his body or belongings. The mystery in which he lived that last few years of his life does not give us much confidence that someone will be found. It is so clear, however, in looking at the joyful faces of circles he once kept, that Shiferaw had a time and place in which he belonged to someone. Whether or not he lived the most recent stage of his life with those friends and family close to him, I always admired how Shiferaw moved about a pretty isolated life with great confidence in who and whose he actually was.

    It was Shiferaw who taught me some years ago that you never turn down what a person who seemingly has nothing to give might offer. There were many times that Shiferaw would visit Micah and ask to speak to me. No matter how long it took for me to finish what I was doing and come speak to him, Shiferaw would wait. He would wait, just to put a few dollars in my hand. Giving to Micah was his way of giving back to God for the blessings God had given him. Sometimes it was $20, other times it was $50 to $100. Our conversations were always the same.

    “You need this money,” I would say to him, as he was sleeping in his car at the time. “Use it to put yourself in a hotel or get something to eat.”

    “It is what God asks of me,” he would reply. “It is in his honor I ask that you take it.”

    Reluctantly, I did. And in time, Shiferaw showed me the meaning of sacrificial love for a God that sacrificed everything so that we might have the life we were created for.

    As I listened to Deacon Nat Harley share a message at Street Church this morning on 1 John 3:1-7, I couldn’t help but think of the assumptions people make about our neighbors. In the mind of the world, being useful and being homeless don’t seemingly go together; and yet those who know our neighbors are often inspired by the gifts and blessings that grow in their healing. In the mind of the world, those who sleep outside must have done something horrific to no longer be welcomed and cared for by their family; and yet we often learn, if even after their passing, that a loving family was once a part of that person’s story before mental illness, death, economic hardship, divorce or otherwise catastrophically took it away. Only the eyes that can see our neighbors as children of God can truly understand them beyond the world’s assumptions.

    The passage from John affirms that we, each and every one of us, is a child of God. Just as the world did not recognize Christ in his lifetime as the son of God, the world struggles to know our neighbors, and sometimes ourselves, as equal recipients of that title.

    Jesus, the original child of God, was ministering to the world even with holes in his hands and a wound in his side, Nat told our group this morning. We cannot encounter such a wound and walk away the same way we walked up to it.

    “When we are restored through the love and the blood of Christ, we have to embrace all the scratches and nicks that come with it,” Nat said.

    While many of us approach mission and ministry with a mind that God is using us to transform lives, I often find my own life is far more transformed by our neighbors than their lives could ever be effected by me. The simple truths and the child like faith of those who join us for street church on Sundays is one such example of the ways God also uses our neighbors to change us. Knowing Shiferaw, and journeying with him if even for just a little while, is another of those encounters that I will forever remember as a modern day parable that drew me one step closer to the child God intends me to be.

    As I was packing up his belongings this week, I came across one other interesting thing—a lamp in which our friend Shiferaw had inscribed a number of scripture passages that were important to him. I loaded it into my car to store with other items we were setting aside on the chance a family member would show up. The process of loading and unloading his belongings, however, diid not agree with my hatchback, and the lamp came crashing to the pavement.

    I scraped the pieces off the pavement, and I have been determined this weekend to super glue the thing back together. I have to admit it is pretty badly broken, and will probably take some time, but I’m hard headed.

    My husband at one point, came in the kitchen and proclaimed, “That looks pretty much like a lost cause.”

    I didn’t look at him.

    “Lost causes, are kind of what I do,” I replied.

    Later, I thought, lost causes are kind of what God does. Every piece, every crumb has a name and a place in the masterpiece of God’s kingdom. The ultimate work of art cannot be complete without one missing piece. No matter how small it seems, how scuffed, how jagged; God looks relentlessly for each and every child to be restored.

    As we left street church today, Arritt connected what we learned last week to the healing we reflected on this morning.

    “Meghann, it seems like what ya’ll are saying is Jesus wounds heal our wounds.”

    “Indeed, my friend,” I replied. “Indeed it does.”

    Thanks be to God,

    Meghann

  • Street Church: Love Abides

    I remember some months ago when Marvin came to respite. He was so lonely and unsettled. He didn’t trust people. Making friends was hard. Chelsea began spending some time with him. Under Amy’s love and care, we learned that Marvin liked to cook. So does Amy. She was just the person to help Marvin put together a book of recipes. He had a great time putting fun meals together in the big respite kitchen. When it was time to move on from respite, Marvin was so nervous about his next steps. In a home of his own, he was worried he would go right back to being alone. Without anyone to cook for, he feared he would become purposeless. Chelsea and Amy worked hard to help Marvin not just move on, but transition well. Turns out there was just the place for that new cookbook in Marvin’s new apartment; and in a sense, he learned that all the friends and community he had gathered during his homelessness, could go with him!

    And Marvin gave us something, as well—a new “house blessing” tradition!

    Now that street church has become a part of Micah’s fabric, we have dreamed of many ways it can play a vital role in making homes out of the many houses we fill each year. After walking Marvin so gently through the process of settling back into a home and seeing how much praying over the rooms in his house meant to him, we realized how important it is to mark a move back into housing as a really special turning point. Our neighbors lives are so often marked by tragedy, trauma, disappointment and loss. No matter how many good things have happened or continue to come their way, it is the dark moments that they remember. It is the painful turns in their lives that keep them stuck and blind them to the successes, the good things, they are achieving. Yes, street church will mark the sad moments, prayer concerns, heartaches, and even the deaths of our neighbors, their family and friends. But I hope we will increasingly reflect as fondly on street church as a place that celebrates, honors the beautiful moments, the precious hours, the wins, the resurrections, as well.

    For those reasons, and many more, I want to share that Marvin has become a budding leader at Street Church. I hope you will celebrate with us that Marvin has not let his exit from homelessness be an exit from our community. In fact, he has been more a part now than he ever could have without a permanent place to lay his head. He keeps coming back and learning that God has many, so many, uses for him.

    I realize when I look across our street church congregation these days that many of those who gather with us are now stably housed. It is a stark contrast to the demographic of those who gathered with us two, three, even one year ago. The change probably has a lot to do with pandemic-related efforts that have allowed us to shelter most of our street homeless in hotels for the better part of a year now. That has also given us the time to move an extraordinary number of people, like Marvin, into permanent homes. I also think, it is easier to be part of something like street church when a person feels settled, when they feel home. Our recently housed neighbors don’t always come immediately after moving into their homes, but it is not unusual for a new face to join us within a few months or weeks after their transiency has been put to rest. When we know the place to which we can come home, it is a lot easier to turn our minds eye to other forms of home, the places God’s love is fully known.

    The Gospel text this week, 1 John 4: 7-21, illuminates with the word love. But in between the highlighted text in our bulletin, another word—abide–jumped out at me. While abide has many definitions, it is used in this text to signify a dwelling place, a location in which love lives, a home of sorts.

    “God abides in us.”
    “Those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”

    Love, indeed, is not like air or water. It is tangible. It has to abide somewhere. Perhaps that’s why it’s hard to love others when they don’t live anywhere. Our neighbors can’t even begin to love themselves until they live somewhere. In turn, the love our neighbors were born to share can’t grow and be offered to others until they have, not just a place to sleep, but to live. And even then God’s love cannot bloom and multiply the way it is intended until it is planted in a place it can be cared for.

    One of the magical things about being a church that worships outside is that there are metaphors all around us that speak to the wonders of our creation. This week the dandelions and buttercups were in full bloom. Chelsea’s son, Evan, spontaneously brought her a bouquet of dandelion seeds mid-sermon that brought a special illustration to her message.

    Chelsea explained, “Where the seeds land is a way we can understand God at work.” Like us, they often don’t land in the most convenient, logical places. But God desires that all of us find that place where love abides. With a place to dwell and put down roots, God’s love anchors us and forms us into a relentless creation whose job it is to fly away and plant more dandelions.

    Notably, we probably don’t like thinking of ourselves or our neighbors as dandelions, a less-desirable weed that some of us make great strides to eliminate from our yards. But I can’t think of a much more plentiful, relentless and resilient bud in God’s creation. It does not discriminate between rich yards or poor, black or white, public or private. By the time someone cuts it down, it has already seeded itself somewhere else. Sounds an awful lot like God’s love.

    Thanks be to God for a community that mourns together and celebrates together, worships together and fellowships together; survives the streets together and goes home together. May God abide in all of us and the love of the seeds that are planted be multiplied.

    Meghann

  • Street Church: The Good Shepherd

    It is increasingly clear to me that even a church without walls will have flock issues. When I say flock, I intend to name both the people who are developing a deep, intimate relationship with the worshipping community we call Street Church and those on the periphery, who may not yet be joining us on Sunday but have a name and place in the hearts of those who are with us. Some folks join us every week, or at least often enough that we say, “where’s…” when they don’t make it. Then there are folks who haven’t yet been able to be with us, but have benefited from the network of care that Street Church is bringing to fruition. We are still new enough, that plenty of people don’t know about us yet. But sometimes an absence from our community is for logistical reasons like transportation or work obligations. Other times, they may be in jail, the hospital, or battling a deep distraction, like depression, addiction or other illness, that keeps them from being with us on Sundays.

    Many things have occurred, however, to remind us that an absence on Sundays is not an absence of yearning and seeking a relationship with God and others.

    My phone, for instance, was ringing at 6:30am yesterday. A woman who has been trying to be with us ended up with a last minute opportunity to have visitation with her child.

    Another of our neighbors caught me on the sidewalk this week to let me know he would be gone for a few weeks. Work has been scheduling him on Sundays and he needs the extra money to pay his rent. “But I’ll be there on Monday for the leadership group” he said.

    Then, just before we began our worship time yesterday, my dad handed me a letter from a woman (Vicki) who has been in jail for a little more than a year now. He has been keeping up with her these many months, visited her a few times, taken her calls, helped protect and store some of her belongings. With her release date fast approaching, however, she is getting nervous. There is often a conflicting emotion for homeless neighbors who are being released from jail. They want nothing more to be free from stone cold cinderblock walls and pretty bad food; but on the outside there are new problems like lack of housing and complicated relationships. No matter how free a person is, the things people have to do for survival when they do not have family or community are sometimes scarier than losing freedom all together.

    In Vicki’s letter, she pleads with God to free her from her sorrow.

    “My God, my savior, where are you at?” she writes. “I’ve been battling the enemy for so long. I’m scared and weary from the fight…..What is your purpose for me and my life? ….My story must be powerful for you to continue leading me through these trials…Jesus can’t we just call it quits and you give me joy?…I’m screaming in fear that you haven’t accepted me. Please don’t leave me alone. Please save me before I give up. I want joy and peace. I want to spend my day and nights with you. Let me suffer no more.”

    Our neighbors who cannot yet be with us for one reason or another have been heavy on the hearts of those of us involved in Street Church. It isn’t just Vicki who feels alone, confused and anxious about what is to come. We receive so many letters or calls from jail each week, that we cannot respond to them all. There are people who need rides on Sunday, but our bus can barely hit all the stops we currently have in the hour before church starts. There are people who always work or have other survival obligations on Sundays, but desperately want and need the community that is forming through Street Church on a different day of the week.

    “The wolf snatches them and scatters them,” read our passage from John 10: 11-18 yesterday. “The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep.” Yet Jesus, the good shepherd, beckons for all to belong to a fold in which they are fully known and fully loved.

    To care for both the flock that joins us on Sunday and the sheep who graze the wider pasture, we are going to need a lot of help with the herd. There are many ways we already see that happening and still others we are praying for partners to emerge.

    Volunteers are aligning to help us run a bus on Sunday, but we are praying for seed members who are willing to personally fetch specific neighbors who need a little extra TLC on Sunday. It is our hope to have a network that helps people get to church, worships with them, takes them home and shares a bit of relationship in the process.

    Folks like Fredericksburg UMC’s Sandy Howson have offered to help us correspond with people in jail so that friends like Vicki will have a little bit more assurance they are not alone; But if we are going to be the church in the ways our neighbors need us to be, God’s going to have to bring us a lot of new people to help us accompany those who are in jail, the hospital and other places of struggle.

    People are sharing their gifts! Tim White of Stafford Food Security has graciously become our first Sunday meal at Street Church. This last week, the folks from Ebenezer UMC teamed up to not only feed the neighbors at Street Church, but stay and share our worship experience.

    We also had the pleasure of hosting a wonderful woman, Jennifer Galvin, who came share the arts with our community.

    Our neighbors were given a printed passage of Psalm 23 and a set of watercolors to spread upon the page as they listened to and contemplated the message of Jesus the good shepherd. Jennifer encouraged them to choose colors that spoke to how the passage made them feel and paint pictures of images it brought to their minds. Kinesthetic activity is one other way that Street Church is reaching those who may not absorb a message that is only spoken verbally or delivered visually. Jennifer’s unique way of making the scriptures real and relevant to our neighbors makes me wonder what other gifts are out there, that could further enrich our worship experience.

    And speaking of answered prayers… yesterday was the first day that our message, music and collective sharing of scripture could be heard clean and crisp throughout the worship service. Many thanks to David and Anne Pierce of Fredericksburg Baptist for the fantastic blessing of a new sound system. Not even the wind could mess with those speakers yesterday. As you may very well know, the Street Church experience is very participatory, and oftentimes the words our community were speaking could not be heard due to the sound system we were using. It was so nice that the voices of God’s people could ring loud and clear throughout our gathering space yesterday and the neighborhood in which we worship.

    Many thanks to all of you for the ways you continue to help us care for the flock, both those who are with us and those still finding their way. Please join us this week was we lift up some critical prayers for things happening in the lives of our neighbors and those who love them.

    Please pray for Sue as she will attempt this week to reconcile with her son.
    Pray for Kathy and her diagnosis of breast cancer.
    Pray for Michelle’s friend
    Pray for Vicki as her release date nears and she seeks relief from her suffering.
    Pray for Mike as he faces a difficult court day this week.
    Pray for Nat Harley, the wonderful deacon from Shiloh New Site, who has been interning with us this last year. He has finished his final class and will no longer be joining us on a regular basis, but we are ever so grateful for the ways he has shaped our community and our neighbors have moved in his.

    Keep praying friends! God is moving among us. All. The. Time.

    Blessings,

    Meghann

  • Street Church: It All Started with the Dirt

    In Genesis, God created humanity with the earth. When we look back and tell the creation story of Street Church, I hope we start with the dirt…

    Feeling a bit out of place, I remember walking into the doors of Farrell hall for the first time in January 2020. I had no idea what I had gotten myself into when this short in stature, but larger than life woman they call Meghann Cotter, asked me to lead a small Sunday study with some friends from the community. Full of prophetic wisdom, she invited me to “come and see” what the Lord was up to within the Micah community. Though I had never worked with those experiencing homelessness before in my ministry, I had close to a decade of worship leading experience and agreed without hesitation, ‘how hard could it be for just one morning?’ I thought to myself, not realizing what was ahead.

    I was in a season of transition myself. I was in the “in-between” or the “waiting place” as Dr. Seuss likes to call it in his children’s book Oh the Places You will Go. I was waiting for God to speak into my next steps. I recently decided to take a year off from my M.Div program to focus on my family after the birth of my second son, Nate. It was a season of spiritual rest and wandering. I wanted to take time to focus on simply “being” rather than doing. I also wanted clarity on my call to ministry as I neared graduation. Where did God need me to plant next?

    I showed up to lead that morning’s discussion and met another larger than life man named “Bear.” I distinctly remember the first moment I met him. He introduced himself and made sure I was protected the whole morning. He was ready to help with anything and I could tell he was a papa bear and beloved. He made it his intention to make sure I was comfortable and had everything I needed. Bear was the first person I had ever met who had experienced homelessness, and he was so open about his story. I was grateful for his vulnerability with me.

    While I wasn’t expecting it, something awoke in me that faithful Sunday morning that I agreed to lead the study for a group of people currently experiencing homelessness. It was something I wasn’t expecting. As if a piece of my soul was shaken out of slumber and I finally recognized all the ways that God had been preparing me for this moment; and so, I decided to say yes.

    The timing didn’t make sense because I thought I was supposed to be “resting” some more (it had been about six months since my son was born); but like a seed who has been waiting for the right Kairos (greek for Gods time), to sprout, I knew God was sowing an opportunity for me to grow and bloom. Though I could not perceive what was ahead of the journey, I could feel that Jesus was leading the way.

    I got to experience a couple more Sunday sessions in a crowded day center where folks lined up for showers afterwards. It was a lively discussion and you never knew where the conversation would take a turn to something completely unexpected and even I daresay, prophetic. I wanted to learn more of their stories. I wanted to understand their faith that seemed so deep and real. I realized I had been in Seminary too long because my understanding of God was so tied up in my head that I forgot what it felt like to have God stirring so deep in my heart.

    I was amazed at this group, that I had only begun to know; their resiliency and strength, even their tenderness and generosity is profound. As I look back on the last year, I knew so little (and still have a lot to learn) but the people in our community have been guiding me along and continuing to invite me into their story. Together, we have been preparing the earth for our budding faith community we like to call “street church” to be “good soil” so that God’s seeds have the opportunity to grow in the streets of Fredericksburg.

    Yesterday, I had the distinct privilege of being installed as the lead pastor and chaplain overseeing the spiritual growth and community building of Micah Ministries. It was a surreal moment, one that will sit in my heart for a lifetime.

    As I looked around yesterday, I was overwhelmed with gratitude as I saw many of our members who have been walking alongside us this year. They have continued to jointly ask the question, “where is God leading us next? How can we be faithful to that Call? How can we be good soil ready for God’s seeds to successfully grow?” Together they brought up gifts and symbols of grace unique for this ministry:

    “Chelsea, accept this coffee…and create space where there is a cup for all neighbors.”

    “Take this rock…and embrace all our jagged edges. Remind us of the water that continues to wash over our lives.”

    “Use this lighter…to bring the light of Christ to neighbors in this community.”

    “Scatter these seeds… to nurture and grow our faith, even when it may be the size of a mustard seed.”

    “Receive this cross…as a symbol of the body in which we are greater together than we could ever be apart.

    I was overjoyed to see our clergy and laity partners who came to support and participate in the service, as well. We had new folks who had never been to our community before and some who have decided to recently call this faith community their home, coming back week after week.

    Though the crowd may look different from that first Sunday I led, the people who find their way here each week are looking for something greater than themselves. Perhaps they come for the coffee, but stay for the community; either way, they are choosing to say “yes” to the opportunity to experience God together. If there is anything this year has taught us, it is that even when we cannot see it, God is making a way through the wilderness (Isaiah 43:19). It is God who is doing a “new thing” and we have the opportunity to participate in what God is cultivating on this sacred ground.

    Oh, and Bear, that big guy who protected me from the very first day on that faithful Sunday? He was there too. This time, he was praying over me as I received a blessing to care for this community with a servant’s heart, a mother’s touch, and the Father’s grace.

    Despite being planted in what felt like a desolate season, in the year 2020 and all that came with it, God is tilling up the good earth in our Micah Community. The Churches have been strategically working together to ensure meals have been provided and the day center has remained open. We are not going through the motions, but we are intentional with how we are serving God with our hands, feet and hearts.

    God has been using all of us, including our neighbors, to do the spiritual “ground work” to prepare us for what lies ahead. Now, we get to watch God’s seeds grow more fruit than we could ever imagine. And to think, it all started with some “good dirt” that will lead us back to God’s beautiful garden, for the whole kingdom of God.

    Thanks be to God,

    Pastor Chelsea

  • Street Church: Promises

    Beloved Community Partners,

    This is the first Sunday in a month that there has not been ice or snow in the forecast. Despite not running the Micah bus over the last couple of weeks, when weather conditions have not permitted safe-travel, we have committed to being.a safe and consistent place open for our friends to gather every Sunday morning, even in the midst of a storm. It was such a joy to see more of our neighbors present yesterday than there have been in weeks. We got to welcome old and new friends with us as we started our first Sunday of lent, which coincidentally, happens to be about promises.


    (image: Sue M. “Brings the Light” at the beginning of the service)

    In the text this week, we took a journey back to the days of Noah; another ordinary man, chosen by God to do something extraordinary. Recognizing that some of our friends may not know the story of the flood and the arc, we introduced the Rev. Drew Colby (UMC) and his daughter who taught us an original (and catchy!) biblical song about the flood and God’s power, repentance, and mercy in the tune of a sailor’s song…

    [image: Rev. Drew VanDyke Colby and his daughter (virtually) lead us in song]

    While God has the power and authority to send a flood because, as Rev. Colby put it in his song, “this world had become a dud!” God changed God’s mind and regretted what was done. God then used a symbol of light to demonstrate the continued covenant with God’s people. In modern interpretation we see this symbol as the miraculous rainbow that appears in the sky after a storm. In the Hebrew, it is literally written as “bow,” like a weapon of war which is hung-up and pointed away from the earth, to never again be used against us.

    God promises to never use power for harm, instead God promises to be our protector. What is unique about this covenant is that there is not a list of demands that holds this agreement in place. God simply says, “this is my promise for you.” We, as humans, have not changed; we are still a broken people in need of wholeness. Yet God continues to send rainbows in the sky for us to remember this covenant despite our short-comings. God is loyal to the disloyal.

    Promises mean something on the street. Your word is your bond. If you are unreliable, it can cause damage to another person. Sometimes it can even mean life or death. Ultimately, in serving this population, I am reminded that an inability to keep a promise is a perpetuance of a shared experience of disappointment. Many relationships have fallen short in their lives and it has made it incredibly difficult to trust anyone. This is why God’s promise is invaluable.

    [image: Pastor Chelsea holding an ashen cross handed out at our Ash Wednesday Service]

    In this season of lent we are focusing on the ways that we are being prepared for the journey to the cross. What better place to start than to focus on the ways that God’s promises of mercy and grace have never fallen short. In fact, in this time we recognize that there is nothing we could do or say to earn those gifts, they are freely given. While we often cannot control our human impulses, God can and does practice divine-control to care for creation with compassion over dominance. We have an opportunity to make promises to God too, to offer up the things that we have tried to control and manipulate, but have ultimately held us back from living into the fullness that God has for us as we journey towards the foot of the cross. Despite our undeservedness, God’s reconciliation is given to us anyway through love, grace, and compassion; we are called to mirror those traits in the world to our neighbors.

    We show up in love when we get to celebrate together with Jimmy (pictured below) and his brother who is recovering from COVID after a very hard battle with the virus. We have been praying for him for weeks now. “While he is still in the hospital,” Jimmy says, “He’s in great recovery because of such intense prayer. If you believe in prayer. You continue it and you don’t doubt that prayer.”


    [image: Jimmy Joe shares a praise about his brother’s recovery]

    We show compassion when one of our guests, Jerry, a first time visitor from Fredericksburg Baptist Church, offered a word of support to our neighbors as he shared about his brother and stayed to listen to our neighbor’s needs around housing.

    We work towards God’s restorative grace when we offer an opportunity to think through this next season of leading our community through sheltering and housing decisions. David Hiles, a dedicated volunteer in our Micah Journey program, is pictured below leading our friends through a housing focus group. After church we took time to ask our neighbors, “what do you want to see in your housing? What is important to you?” The over-resounding theme among our friends was that they wanted to live in a place that was safe, secure and had opportunities for community; a place they could make their home.

    [image: David Hiles leading our housing focus group]

    We are all trying to make our way home, aren’t we? After church, I had the distinct privilege to visit with a neighbor, Matt Allen, in his ICU hospital room after suffering from cardiac arrest in one of our hotel rooms. Matt has been under the care of our Respite house for the last six months and just recently went into one of our hotels (hopefully on the road to housing). Our staff member, Amy Ridderhoff, has been working closely with Matt four times a week over the last six months and told me that he had been going to church, trying to get his life stable and where he wanted to be.

    We didn’t know if Matt would make it through the weekend and something inside me told me to go to the hospital to see him right after church. When I got up to his room, I was stopped and told that I wasn’t supposed to be on the ICU floor, but I was grateful for the attendees’ grace as they let me continue my visit when he realized I was Clergy. God clearly needed me there for a reason. God brought me through the barriers that would have prevented our encounter, I knew I was on holy ground. I read the 23rd Psalm and found myself looking at Romans 8:18 “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us…” (Romans 8:18) I pray that Paul’s words gave him comfort.

    Though he was unconscious, hooked on life support, I prayed out loud over him. I talked with him about how much he was loved, how much our Micah family loved and cared for him and we were praying for his healing. We promised to support him, to claim him, just as God does for us. We lean on the promise made by God to love and protect us. We believe in this hope that is everlasting, and has been passed on from the days of Noah and will be passed on to our future generations.

    We believe that God will walk with us as we see this life through and whether that moment is now or ten years from now, we pray that God will welcome us with restorative and healing love, grace and compassion. My prayer for Matt in that moment was just that. I prayed that God would heal his afflictions in glory and bring him peace.

    Matt died two hours later.

    God does not promise that there will not be suffering or pain in our lives. God does promise to never leave us or forsake us. Paul writes in Romans 8:38, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, not things present, nor things to come, not powers, nor height, nor depth, not anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” We give thanks in the hope everlasting that promises to restore, not destroy; that promises to be present, even in the silence. We give thanks for a God who sees all creatures as “beloved creation” and we give thanks that though we are not worthy, Christ died for us anyway. For you, for me, for Matt, and all of our other Micah neighbors who sit in the fold of God’s everlasting promise. Thanks be to God. Amen.

    We ask that you continue to pray for us as we build a community that knows that they are deserving of this promise as well. If you would like to give and support our programs at Micah including (but not limited to) our Respite program or Street Church, you can give through micahfredericksburg.org – We are also selling Micah “Do.Love.Walk” shirts to close out our #loveyourneighbor campaign. Micah receives $10/per shirt ordered. We appreciate your continued prayers and support for all of our ministries and programs.

    May peace be with you during this lenten season…

    [Our prayer requests for this week 2/21/21]

  • Street Church Ashes in the Park: Neighbors Serving Neighbors

     

     

    Beloved Community:

    You may recall Meghann’s letter last week about our recent Street Church experience as we focused on the transfiguration of Jesus and the “mountaintop moments” of our faith journey. We reflected on the wonder of God and the ways that we could hold on to those mountaintop moments, where we stand in awe of the splendor of God even when we are called to go down off the mountain and back into the valley. 

    While Ash Wednesday is traditionally one of the more somber days of our christian calendar, yesterday’s first Ashes in the Park was a true mountaintop moment for me. We have been intentionally working with our neighbors to empower them to realize their gifts and strengths that they can offer this world. Our community is rooted in the mission of neighbors serving neighbors; the broken leading the lost, so that we can fully realize the kingdom of God here on Earth. We strive to be a body of Christ where the lines between “us” and “them” no longer exist; a place where we can just be “us.”

    I’ll admit, one of things I continue to work on as a mission developer and pastor to this community is focusing on God’s abundance over a scarcity mindset. When my inner critic wants to take over and I wonder if anyone will show up to one of our gatherings, God always has a way of showing up ten-fold. I am pretty sure that is a biblical response or God’s sense of humor (or both). As we prepared the last minute details for yesterday’s inaugural service, I arrived at Hurkamp Park not sure what to expect. To my relief, I encountered a host of our street leaders who were ready to go and serve their community. 

    Our minister of worship leadership, “Bear,” was working diligently with our volunteer leader, Rev. Carole duBois, as they put out the soups and items for lunch, directing our neighboring volunteers who showed up to help. Our friend, George, who you recently saw in a #loveyourneighborcampaign interview, took the liberty to prepare our altar and the AV equipment before I even arrived. My goal is always to empower others to lead and it felt like a moment of arrival for us as a community.

    As I watched our street leadership team own this event, I simply stood back and was in awe of God; I was on a mountaintop. This is what we have been working tirelessly to achieve. To boost our street neighbor’s confidence in a way that they see themselves as the leaders and take ownership of this community. They were not on the other side of the serving line, receiving, they were the ones holding out the “hands of Jesus” to help their neighbors in need too.

    Our meditation for our service was based on Psalm 51, and we drafted an original liturgy that was based on a Micah community written poem titled, “The City Through Our Eyes.” It was a moment for our community to lament over the ways that we have fallen short as a collective, to love and serve our neighbors. In this call and response liturgy, we as a body of Christ cry out to the Lord for mercy and compassion for the ways that our assumptions have prevented us from listening and seeing the pain of our neighbors. We prayed for God to give us new eyes to see and ears to hear the cries of our brothers and sisters in need.

    Yesterday was a moment when our neighbors could fully own their story. We recognize that no matter our past, present, or future, God can use our valleys and ashes as a living sacrifice. Like the dry bones of Ezekiel who are being called into new life, we are in a moment of awakening as a community. We stand in awe of all the things God continues to do and we continue to ask for your prayers and support. 

    If your faith community or organization would like to be more involved in serving alongside our Street Church community, I welcome your creative partnership ideas as we strive to love and serve the Lord, through love of neighbor.

    May this season of Lent be an opportunity for your own spiritual renewal as God draws you closer….

     

  • Street Church: The Mountaintop

    Hello Friends,

    If ending homelessness is the goal, I don’t always think Micah has done a very good job. Still, after 15 years, there is always someone else in crisis, something more we could have done, or a different decision we might have made.

    In my case, I chose a life’s calling because I wanted to make a difference; and for a long time, if the work didn’t take our neighbors, individually and collectively, to the mountaintop, I wondered if there was even a story worth telling. Our neighbors are often like that too. If they can’t get it all together, put their past aside and show up in the ways the rest of the world expects of them, they stop believing they are even worthy of climbing the mountain.

    What I have come to learn our churches did all those years ago, in creating Micah, was commit less to the mountaintop and far more to the valley work that alleviates the suffering. Sure, there have been many mountaintops in this journey: the opening of our respite house, welcoming hundreds of chronic homeless into a new home, and most recently, an opportunity to shelter almost the entire street population during the pandemic, to name a few. But following God to a place of true reconciliation, always takes us back to the valley.

    And as we talked at street church Sunday, that’s the story of Jesus (Mark 9:2-9), as well.

    In a video message shared with our community this morning, Carla Pratt Keyes of Ginter Park Presbyterian in Richmond said suffering is necessary to be human. Jesus was fully human and he chose to come down into our mundane life…and share in the difficulties of humanity, even death. The disciples learned from Jesus, not by remaining on the mountaintop, but following him down the mountain and into the suffering.

    At different points in the life of Micah Ministries we’ve been asked to explain success. Funders usually want to know how many people we’ve served and how lives have changed. The community expects the harrowing tale of the street person who suffered and, with God’s help, finally has it all together. Although there are plenty of those mountaintops in our narrative, there’s a far better story in the relationships and experiences that relentlessly continue to journey with people in their suffering.

    Recently, I’ve shared four stories from our neighbors, Rachel, George, Arritt and Sue, as part of the Love Your Neighbor campaign. All of them talk about the valleys they have been through and the mountains they have seen or believe they are capable of scaling. But no matter where they are in their story, they acknowledge the many ways they are still on the journey. Each, in their own way, is still meandering through grief, illness and sometimes addiction and other struggles. No one is a finished product; but what I find so profound in the contrast of “where they have been” to “where they are now” is that they all know they are not alone.

    I have also been keeping you posted on what has been happening with our friend Jeremiah. After 27 years of street life, he has spent the last three weeks in his own apartment. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to tell you a “has it all together” story on Jeremiah. I don’t even know yet, if he is actually going to stay put as the weather gets warm and the ebb and flow of his paranoia plays out. But I can tell you, in this moment, that something really special is happening as our community journeys with him out of the suffering and into a place of newfound stability, hope and reconciliation. Oddly enough, tasks as simple as caring for a home, taking out the trash and shoveling the walkway, are freeing Jeremiah from the margins. No longer is he literally outside and an outsider to our community. He lives IN a community; and having the opportunity to cultivate and care for it gradually gives him a chance to reclaim his place with in it, and ultimately the kingdom of God.

    As Street Church has discussed for several weeks now, climbing the mountain is certainly hard work. There is baggage to leave behind. There is survival gear to pack. There are tools to be utilized. But today’s message, might be most pivotal of all. A mountaintop is merely a mileposts. It is not the destination.

    I don’t know if we will ever end homelessness, at least in my lifetime. But even if we could, the work of the church would still not be complete. Suffering does not stop at the doorstep of a house, the first day of a new job, when a plate of food is dropped in front of someone, or even following a baptism. Our neighbors will find themselves in the valley, and through Street Church they are learning that Christ is there, as well.

    Our community is excited to be part of Micah’s ecumenical observance of lent this year. In today’s leadership meeting they made crosses and talked about final details for our Ash Wednesday service. It will be held at noon in Hurkamp Park this coming Wednesday, Feb. 17, with hot soup to go provided by some of our church partners.

    Please consider joining us for Ash Wednesday. And mark your calendars, as follows, to virtually attend the upcoming noonday lenten services, which will be live-streamed on Micah’s Facebook and Youtube channel.

    Feb 24- Rev. Allen Fisher, The Presbyterian Church of Fredericksburg
    March 3 – Rev. Aaron Dobynes, Shiloh Baptist Old Site
    March 10 – Rev. Josh Hagstrom, Fredericksburg United Methodist
    March 17 – Rev. Will Dickinson, St. George’s Episcopal
    March 24 – Rev. Chelsea Morse, Street Church. (Psst…George is working on a special music piece to share at the service!!)

    Before I go, I also want to lift up thanks for Chalee’ Carmichael’s Sunday school class at Fredericksburg Baptist Church for dropping off blankets for our community this morning!

    Thanks be to God,

    Meghann

  • Word on the Street: Where God needs us next

    After a decade and a half of caring for street people, I often like to think I have this love your neighbor thing figured out. 

    But every time I get there, God reveals just one more thing. And I question everything. 

    Some years ago, I assisted a homeless vet named Bryan into a house. Besides declining health, he had most things working in his favor. He liked to fish and dress nicely. He was smart, earned a service-connected pension, and if I hadn’t told you he was homeless he would come across as any other retired guy. 

    Bryan was a one-time homeless guy, briefly ending up in shelter when his health prevented him from working at the same pace. He moved into a rented room and never lost his housing again. 

    Success, right?

    It had been so many years since I had heard from Bryan that when the police called a few months ago asking for his next of kin, it took me a while to place the name and the face. 

    With Bryan gone, it wasn’t long before his roommate started worrying about the other half of the rent. It isn’t uncommon for us to patch a vacancy in a shared housing situation, when the loss of a roommate would cause another neighbor to lose their housing; so, she called.  

    “There’s just one problem,” she said. “His room is a mess, and I don’t know where to even begin.”

    I’ve seen the worst of messes, take my word for it. And so, I didn’t think anything about climbing into my cleaning gear and heading over for a Saturday morning quick fix. 

    I had a roommate match in mind, and figured that a few hours of heavy-duty cleaning would do the trick. 

    It was, perhaps, the 28th bag of trash that Bryan’s roommate and I hauled from his apartment that my emotions got the best of me. 

    One time homeless. 

    No substance abuse issues. 

    A vet. 

    Every reason to succeed independently. 

    And yet, his declining health and absence of community left him to die alone in a pile of trash. 

    You should know, I get so freaking mad at God in these moments. I make it about me and my organization. Then, I grieve the things I wish we had known and the ways I know it could have been different. 

    Eventually, I quell the pain enough to ask the most important question, “Where is God at work in this?”

    It occurs to me in reflection on this recent experience that it is not uncommon for a disciple, even the original 12, to find themselves unknowingly asleep in the midst of divine activity. It is easy to grow complacent, to think we have all the answers, when we’ve spent so much time tracking the footsteps of Jesus. It was the disciples, after all, who fell asleep in the most critical hours preceding Christ’s betrayal (Mark 14: 32-42).

    Just one passage earlier in the book of Mark, however, we are reminded of the difficulty in attentive living. The uncertainty of when and how Christ’s presence will be made known is grueling work. Keep awake. Stay alert. Remain on the watch, calls Mark 13: 24-37. Something is going to happen.

    That means there is no actual point of arrival in our coming to understand and embody the essence of discipleship. In fact, every situation has the potential to reveal not just where God is at work, but where God needs us next.

    I have grieved for our neighbor Bryan, and I am sad that he left this world with such despair. But I can lose myself in a pool of self-analysis, or can get to work. I can keep watch. And I can wait for the next opportunity to be an instrument in thy kingdom come. 

    “When Lord when,” will it all make sense we may sometimes wonder.   

    While we do not know what will come and how it will happen, we know who is to come. 

    And so, we watch. 

    We wait. 

    We learn. 

    We love. 

    We live. 

  • Love Your Neighbor

    For 73 days this year, Virginians sheltered in place under the Governor’s “stay at home” order. But the reality for 110 neighbors within the Micah community was that they had no shelter in which to place. 

    Through the love of our churches, Micah committed to remaining a lighthouse in the storm – to securing emergency, socially-distanced motel rooms for our vulnerable neighbors. We committed to keeping the doors of Micah Hospitality Center open for showers, clean clothes, and other basic provisions. We delivered thousands of hot meals, expedited transitions into permanent housing (51 and counting), and worked with many of our neighbors to increase their income. We distributed cleaning supplies, masks, and hand sanitizers. We showed up, even if that meant gathering in a parking lot six feet apart.

    Our prayer remained, if only for a season, to get everyone off the street. Today, our prayer is that no one has to return to the street. That all of our guests continue to experience the security and stability of shelter, and eventually a permanent home. That our guests don’t just survive. That they thrive.

    Yet the future remains unknown, and in many ways, our challenges are only just beginning. Here are some ways you can make an impact. 

    $15 provides a night of winter shelter for one person

    $25 buys a tent or sleeping bag

    $30 keeps someone in housing for day

    $45 keeps someone in a socially distanced shelter bed for a night

    $100 buys a night of respite care for a person recovering from a hospital visit

    $200 a day sparks the spiritual walk of new disciples

    $350 a day provides basic needs of people living on the street

    $900 covers the average rental deposit

    $1500 bridges a someone to work