We Can Be Powerful Together
An Inreach Reflection. Written by Grace Gee, Nativity Lutheran Church.
Grace first shared these words at Beacon’s congregation convening on December 9, 2021. They are republished here with her permission.
Nativity has been on a journey in recent years to understand what it means to be a public church and how Nativity can move to be a public church. A public church is living our faith outside the walls of the church building, and standing up to injustice.
The killing of Philando Castile by a St Anthony police officer accelerated and focused that journey and helped Nativity organize around several outreach teams. With two major one being a Homeless Outreach team and a Racial Equity and Justice Ministry Team.
What better way for Nativity to do “public church” than joining in Beacon Interfaith Housing Collaborative initiatives and consider joining as a collaborative member. In a recent sermon by one of our pastors, he left us with this statement: “Our relationship with God, called faith, is formed and nurtured in community but actualized out there.”
We are so moved and excited to see all that this collaborative has already accomplished over the past decades of steadfast work so that all people have a home!
This fall, we joined in the Beacon Inreach initiative called “Powerful Together: Conversations for Change.” Congregations were trained to have 1:1 conversations with their church community to discuss personal passions, social justice perceptions of their congregation members, and share Beacon work.
The inreach conversations held many lessons for Nativity:
- Talking about the Bring it Home, MN campaign was appealing to many and a way to do public church work.
- The 1:1 conversations increased awareness and knowledge of Beacon and it’s work; moving Nativity to consider being a Beacon collaborative partner.
- The conversations helped us understand that social justice issues are important to many at Nativity. Some people I spoke with had personal stories about affordable housing and homeless affecting them personally through family members, their neighborhoods, and their work.
- Others talked about seeing tent encampments and how wrong this is that people do not have a stable home.
- The inreach gave Nativity an opportunity to have conversations that probably would not have happened. These conversations have given us persons that would be useful to have on our Nativity Homeless Outreach team.
- The inreach initiative will help Nativity expand conversations beyond Beacon work. Nativity has plans to do 1:1 conversations beyond Beacon Inreach conversations.
- Political and legislative actions will be somewhat new to Nativity however we found no one during the conversations that were hesitant. Some felt there might be some push back but would not stop them from offering such opportunities to be involved in things like Bring it Home Minnesota and Rent is Due. The pastors are on board.
- Some people shared that they would like more “hands on” opportunities with Beacon. Sharing with them that doing more policy work around affordable housing can be a form of “hands on” work and I encouraged people during conversations to think about hands on opportunities differently.
Although the goal was to have more 1:1 conversations, it was still a valuable exercise for Nativity. And I hope that’s true for others participated in the inreach.
(Pictured: Individuals talking to each other at our convening)
In looking back at the inreach, many congregations who participated learned a great deal about their members, as did Beacon. The final count showed that a total of 326 conversations took place, 85 trained visitors participated, 22 congregations participated, and 120 of the people that participated in these conversations were brand new to Beacon. The conversations that happened built solidarity, raised awareness, and formed new relationships; ultimately growing the base of people willing to take action with Beacon.
Many of you here tonight may have come because someone invited you through a 1:1 conversation! There’s a lot to learn from and celebrate!
However, one of the biggest learnings for us and many other congregations is how many things can get in the way of reaching our goals. While we are excited about what we accomplished, our goal was 1,000 conversations! It’s a good time for all of us to reflect on what’s holding us back.
For some, it took extra time to create the “perfect” system and we got started on the conversations themselves too late. For others, there was reluctance to approach their members on what felt like a personal subject, of housing instability and the mission of their faith community.
For many, the challenges of the pandemic were limiting connections and communication within our faith communities and we missed seeing people in person.
(Pictured: Grace speaking over Zoom at our convening)
It’s clear that if we as a collaborative hope to work for change as big as Theresa and Peter have just shared about, we will need to stay very focused on conversations that build the power to make it possible! There are no shortcuts to simply talking with one another, building trust and sharing the joy of what’s possible when we work together on something so central to all of us as home.
And we have so much joy to share! Because we CAN be so powerful together.
Beacon is the power of faith communities in action. Learn how you can help see that all people have a home. Click here to get involved. Click here to read more about our congregation convening.
