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Tim Harvey on serving people who fall through the cracks After clicking 'Play', please wait a few moments for the essay to load. Jada Williams addressed the Gun Violence Prevention Commission in Roanoke, Virginia, with a conviction formed from tragedy and tinged with the tiredness of someone who has labored long with little to show for her work. Speaking in an unremarkable City Hall conference room, she had come to tell us the story of her teenage son, Jamal, who was the innocent victim of a gang-related shooting during the summer of 2021—a tragic situation of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The shooting left Jamal with significant, long-term disabilities. In the months following the shooting, Jada barely left Jamal’s side. Her fierce maternal care, however, came at a high price. Caring for Jamal meant quitting her job so she could be at his bedside. Quitting her job meant spending the savings intended to purchase a home for her family. Spending her savings meant being unable to afford rent, so now she and her family, including three other young children, live in the basement apartment of a church member’s home. At times, Jamal’s needs were so demanding that her other children spent the weekend with their teachers. Our commission’s agenda this particular evening left us mired in the data of gun violence, assault and murder tabulated into neat statistical reports and identified by colored dots on a map of our city. The poise and determination in Jada’s voice, however, reminded us of the deadly importance of this work. What might have been most striking about Jada’s remarks that evening was that she was not angry with us; in fact, she expressed deep gratitude for this voluntary effort. But Jada was determined to be heard. Since that night when her family’s life was changed forever, Jada has tried everything she can to get help. She has visited every social service agency in our city seeking assistance with housing, nursing care, and support for her children. In every instance, she has come away empty-handed. It turns out that our city has an abundance of agencies that exist to aid persons in all kinds of circumstances—all kinds of circumstances, it turns out, but hers. Everywhere has Jada turned, it seems that she doesn’t quite fit the mission of the agency or purpose of the charitable organization that otherwise exists to provide assistance of one kind or another. She came to the commission to insist that as we seek solutions to prevent gun violence, we not neglect to find solutions for victims of gun violence like Jamal, persons who fall through the cracks of the social safety net after news coverage moves on to the next story. Ministry beyond the congregation The Roanoke City Council appointed the Gun Violence Prevention Commission in the summer of 2019 to study the rising levels of gun violence, identify its root causes, and create meaningful opportunities for positive, non-violent living in our diverse city. Our nine-member commission is made up of social workers, mental health professionals, and clergy. Like many cities in America, incidents of gun violence in Roanoke have increased over the past 10 years. And while we are each horrified by the long litany of mass-casualty shootings plaguing our nation, the type of gun violence we are working to reduce is gang-related with a deep taproot in the soils of poverty, racism, and the so-called “urban renewal” movement of the 1960s–1980s. Many of the housing projects and neighborhoods where gun violence is concentrated are the product of this triplet of urban brokenness. I sought appointment to the Gun Violence Prevention Commission out of the commitment to peace and nonviolence I’ve learned as a lifelong member of the Church of the Brethren—one of the three “historic peace churches”—and my 18 years of pastoral leadership in Roanoke. The six Church of the Brethren congregations in our city have a long history of ministry with our entire community, an emphasis that has continued as incidents of gang-related gun violence are increasing in the high-poverty, historically Black northwest quadrant of our city. My congregation finds great spiritual value in our outreach: we tithe our congregational giving and designate much of that money to non-profit organizations that provide housing, counseling, and medical care to persons “in need.” Beyond our tithe, we regularly offer our time and talent to a non-profit organization that builds beds for children who do not have them. We eagerly support our denomination’s disaster response programs through special offerings. But two things are clear. The first is that ministries like these have a real impact and address a significant need. The second is that charitable giving has not yet touched Jada in a way that will change this new trajectory of her life. Jada’s story offers a difficult combination of two uncomfortable facts that seem to be contradictory, but actually combine in a difficult truth: the social “safety net” is only barely keeping her head above water. Yet Jada did not come to the commission to ask for assistance. Even after she learned I am a pastor, she did not ask if my congregation could help her. Jada is simultaneously appreciative of the many who have helped her and is still struggling to keep her life together. All she insists is that our commission be aware of the people who are falling through the cracks and do something about it. An uncomfortable confession As I drove home from our meeting the evening Jada spoke, it occurred to me that I have the privilege of choosing how to respond to people like her. Do persons in my White, middle-class, suburban congregation have any obligation to Jada? We share a faith, a city, and a common humanity. Each Sunday in worship, my congregation seeks reconciliation with God and one another by confessing that “we have sinned against [God] in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.” Could the struggle of Jada’s family be something we have left undone? A challenge with a familiar liturgy is that repetition leaves us deaf to our words, granting us the privilege of keeping a deeper significance of prayer—and the people and circumstances it represents—at arm’s length. What would we learn if we asked God to show us what we are leaving undone? How can we translate these words into action and, in so doing, “produce fruit in keeping with repentance” in a way that impacts a struggling neighbor? Such prayer might cause us to reconsider the meaning of “neighbor.” This is the issue at the heart of the Parable of the Good Samaritan, a story so well known that the phrase “Good Samaritan” has long been part of our secular vocabulary. Jesus tells this story in response to someone who asks, “Who is my neighbor?” In a story of persons who either do or do not assist a man badly wounded in a robbery, we find that being a neighbor means personally entering someone’s suffering. The Samaritan man who provides assistance is held up as a model because of involvement that comes at great personal and financial cost. His direct intervention sets the wounded man on the road to recovery, an intervention that comes while others were so busy with religious obligations they had no time to be curious about a man who had been left for dead. Jada’s story presents some difficult questions for us. Repenting of things left undone should not cause us to overlook the good work we are already involved in. Financially supporting those who serve our community extends the reach of our congregations and strengthens our neighborhoods in significant ways. What our repentance offers here is an invitation to go deeper, recognizing that healing the brokenness in our communities will involve a costly personal involvement. It might begin with a partnership with a congregation across town, where we show up and earn the right to hear stories like Jada’s, while learning of both the beautiful and broken places in neighborhoods we rarely visit. It might mean investing our time and talent in ministries and programs that others are sponsoring, providing both assistance and encouragement for those already working on the front lines of brokenness. It might mean having our preconceptions shattered and our hearts touched about what life really looks like for neighbors we have not yet met. We live in a time when it is popular to blame others for the things they have done. But a commitment to public ministry challenges us to consider the things we have left undone: thinking about people and situations we’ve never thought about; seeing people we prefer to overlook; challenging ourselves to invest our faith in a compassionate neighborliness that walks long, costly roads with people like Jada for whom there are no quick answers. Tim Harvey is the pastor of Oak Grove Church of the Brethren in Roanoke, Virginia.
Tim's other work on Foreshadow: The Comfort that Comes to Those Who Mourn (Non-fiction, May 2021) Consider thanking our contributors by leaving a comment, sharing this post or buying them a book.
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 After clicking 'Play', please wait a few moments for the podcast to load. You can also listen on Spotify, Apple, Google, Podomatic, Player FM and Deezer. Listen to other Forecasts here. Vocational guide Jeff Compton-Nelson speaks with Josh about his role in supporting seminary students to discern who they are and how they will live into the life God is giving them. He also shares his personal vocational journey, which has brought surprises and gifts. Developing a concept map of calling, they explore the universal callings of all people, the relationship between vocation and career, ordained ministry and chaplaincy, the vocation of art and writing and the importance of community and renewing the mind in discerning God's will. Below's highlight from today's Forecast has been lightly edited for clarity and concision. On being really bad at predicting the future If you were to talk to Angela, my wife, she might say I've been in a vocational crisis for several years. There is an ironic fittingness to my being in this role. In some part, it makes sense having someone in this role who's had their own prolonged vocational crisis -- what do I do? Where am I supposed to be? More downs than ups, a lot of closed doors along the way. I sort of laugh at myself. Who would've thought that the vocational crisis that I'm currently in that prompted me to try workshops on how to get jobs or these training sessions on coaching and discerning vision and strategy for your life -- what you're about at your core -- who would've thought that the crisis that brought around the desire to participate in these trainings and workshops was itself the training of guiding students through it as well?... When I grew up, my sense of vocation was that I had my life plan worked out -- this is what I'll be doing each decade of my life. As it turns out, I'm really bad at predicting the future. None of that has worked out, but it's always been a gift. I began to see the vocational journey as: you work towards some goal, some current vision of what it looks like to inhabit your vocation as Christians. At some point, the path will turn, or there will be a new path that comes along the path you're on that brings a new way. So work towards a goal, but also with the openness that the odds are that it's going to be something else, and that's OK. Jeff Compton-Nelson is the Assistant Director of Field Education and Vocational Formation at Duke Divinity School, North Carolina. An ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene, Jeff is married, and they have two children. Jeff welcomes feedback; his email address is [email protected].
Below are the books mentioned in this episode: A Ray of Darkness by Rowan Williams Let Your Life Speak by Parker Palmer Live for a Change by Francis DeWar Josh Seligman is the founding editor of Foreshadow and a co-host of Forecast. Consider thanking our contributors by leaving a comment, sharing this post or buying them a book. By Alina Sayre In the evangelical church where I grew up, we typically used the word calling rather than vocation, and it had a very specific meaning: the audible or near-audible voice of God that turned people into pulpit preachers or overseas missionaries. As a teenager, I dared not view myself as called because only men were allowed to be preachers in my denomination, and I had no draw to evangelize overseas. Besides, it was writing I loved. Not even the “holy” kind of writing, like Bible commentaries or Christian magazine articles—I wanted to write novels, fantasy stories, poems. However, I had no theology for this. There were no writers at my church—none who would make a public confession, at least—and we did not discuss the gifts of the Holy Spirit much. I knew only my urge, my need to shape and craft words. So I wrote fervently but guiltily, always outside of church, worrying constantly that this passion was a sin or at least a distraction from God. It did not help that my faith tradition has historically been skeptical of art and beauty. As a Protestant, I am the spiritual descendant of iconoclasts, from Calvin to Zwingli to Cromwell. Reading the Second Commandment literally—“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image”—Protestant reformers whitewashed church murals and bricked over mosaics so worshipers could better focus on hearing the word of God. The American Restorationists, my denomination’s forebears, may not have been quite so zealous for outright destruction, but they still considered visual art to be a pointless distraction from plain teaching or even a risky flirtation with idolatry. Thus, at the church where I grew up, we worshiped in a plain, practical auditorium. Instead of pews, we had folding chairs that could face in any direction, circle up for small groups, or disappear entirely for Vacation Bible School (VBS) and Super Bowl gatherings. Flat screens were framed on the front wall, large enough for easy-to-read song lyrics, but not so large as to be mistaken for a movie theater. A plain wooden cross stood in one corner. A lot of good was done in that big multipurpose room: food drives, backpack drives, Christmas gift drives, free VBS and trick or treating for kids in the community. But there was not much beauty in the space. Church funds were considered better spent on programs, and really the idea of God was all we needed anyway. All of this made me deeply suspicious of my vocational inclinations. I felt increasingly convicted that writing was something I was made to do, but how could that be from God when art was frivolous, maybe even idolatrous? Over time, a few influences shaped my theology of vocation as a writer. One was the apostle Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, in which he discusses the diversity of the Holy Spirit’s gifts to the church: “Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many." (1 Cor. 12:12–14) Unlike the simplistic limitations of calling from my upbringing, passages like this one emphasize that there is room, even necessity, for diversity in the body of Christ. Each part of the body needs the others. A body made of all hands or eyes or lungs or elbows would be ill-equipped for, or perhaps even incapable of, life. Similarly, what would become of the church’s life and witness be if all vocations were to pulpit preaching or missionary careers? Christians have left mighty impacts on the world as nurses and janitors, social workers and interior designers, engineers and fitness instructors, archivists and activists, parents and park rangers and psychologists. There is space for all people and all callings in the church body, and that includes space for art and writing. Another point of guidance came from the writers who shaped my own journey. Many of the books I read and loved in childhood, including C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia and J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, were written by professing Christians who used their imaginations fearlessly. These stories not only delighted me, but they also gave me wisdom on how to navigate some of the most difficult moments of my life. As I grew older, I was also inspired by writers of other faiths or of no formal religious affiliation, a demonstration of the Spirit moving without boundary to share beauty and inspiration with all God’s children. Realizing the impact books have had on my own journey has strengthened my conviction that words and stories are a meaningful vocation with the power to inspire, convict, comfort, delight, and direct people’s lives. Though I did not encounter Frederick Buechner until much later in my life, I gradually pieced together a theology similar to his famous quote: “Vocation is the place where our deep gladness meets the world's deep need.” I concluded that the deep gladness that resonated in me when I was writing stories or shaping sentences came from somewhere, and that somewhere was the created part of me where the Spirit was still hovering over the waters. Why would God have placed that gladness in me without intending for me to use it, particularly in a world starved for the inspiration, provocation, refreshment, curiosity, and hope that can come from art? It is a question I still cannot answer. And so I write. There are still plenty of people who view art as spiritually suspect or a second-class vocation, but pushing forward into this writing life with honesty and vulnerability has brought me great healing and freedom. My most recent publication was a book of poems entitled Fire by Night, which explores topics such as grief, loss, and spiritual deconstruction. While terrifying, writing from the deepest places of my heart liberates me to be more courageous, healthier, and freer to explore the future. It also brings me encouragement to get emails from people who say that my words have given voice to their own previously silent experiences. Perhaps that is what Buechner was getting at: when we pursue our vocations, however unconventional they may be, we nourish the needs of both the world and our own souls. I am a writer, and I am no longer afraid to call this life my vocation. I no longer see it as spiritually frivolous, distracting, or sinful—quite the contrary. This gift of the Spirit is my deep gladness and my way of, I hope, giving back to the world’s deep need. If the body of faith has many parts, perhaps I am the writer’s callus. Alina Sayre is the award-winning author of five books, a graduate student of theopoetics and an editor of Foreshadow. You can learn more about her work here, and you can find her book of poems Fire by Night here.
Alina's other work on Foreshadow:
Find more resources on writing and vocation here. Consider thanking our contributors by leaving a comment, sharing this post or buying them a book. By Carl Winderl of babel, I was there. not on the ground floor of it but in the Upper Room of It. the difference easy to know and to sense if you’d been there as was I thence with the Self-Same Spirit Present as at the Annunciation. so, at the end, at the Very End when the anti- christ will roam how to know and how to sense the Difference from him to Him My Son simple, be alert to the Spirit. Carl Winderl holds a Ph.D. in Creative Writing from New York University and maintains a home in San Diego, California. He is the author of the poetry book, The Gospel According. . . to Mary (Finishing Line Press, 2021), and he is currently serving Ukrainian refugees with his wife in Poland (read more here).
Carl's other work on Foreshadow: At Judas' funeral (Poetry, March 2022) A Writer Is Always at Work (Part 1 of 2) (Interview, May 2021) A Writer Is Always at Work (Part 2 of 2) (Interview, June 2021) Consider thanking our contributors by leaving a comment, sharing this post or buying them a book.  After clicking 'Play', please wait a few moments for the podcast to load. You can also listen on Spotify, Apple, Google, Podomatic, Player FM and Deezer. Listen to other Forecasts here. Farm manager Sarah DePhillips speaks with Will about sharing the good news of Jesus through sustainable farming. Through Sarah's work supporting young people in Virginia and farmers in Zimbabwe, she embodies her message that God has given us everything we need to flourish, and our task is to steward our resources well, whether they are material, such as soil and water, or immaterial, such as our relationships with people, our gifts and our good passions. Below's highlights from today's Forecast has been lightly edited for clarity and concision. Who we are and what we do I tend to think of calling more as who God has called us to be. I think about two senses: one in a general sense: God has given us his word and the life of Jesus to look at, and he's called us to conform to the image of Jesus. Every Christian, every human, I think, God desires to know him and to become more like him in our character. And in a specific sense, he's given each and everyone of us different talents, different passions. So our calling is to become more like God and to know him more, and then specifically to live out the gifts and passions he's given us. That really gets to the 'who'. Whereas vocation I think more of as what we do: what we do with our day, what we do with our time. That might be a job we go to work and get paid for, that might be caring for children or an elderly parent -- there's lots of things that come into vocation. Caring for a garden. I think of the calling as 'who' and vocation as 'what'. You have what you need One of the neat things about going back to the basics of agriculture in a society that is totally dependent is that they do things a lot more in the way they were done in the Bible. They have more of this agrarian society outlook in that life is built around the rhythms of rain, drought, planting and harvest. We have given them a lot of bad agricultural practices in the West, and some of the Foundations for Farming teaching that we do is trying to undo some of that, but I think the coolest thing is the message that they have what they need to practise agriculture in a way that is also worshipful...You already have what you need, you just have to steward it well, is the message. And that message brings so much joy because we've encountered this concept that we don't have what we need -- the West has messed things up, and we need the West to give us technology or whatever it is -- and the message is, no, you have what you need, and God has given you what you need, and you honour God by stewarding your resources well and by telling your neighbours about the gospel and why you're farming this way. Sarah DePhillips is a farm manager with Hope for Suffolk, a ministry that serves and empowers young people in Suffolk, Virginia, through agricultural work (learn more here). She also works with Foundations for Farming, a stewardship programme for farmers in Zimbabwe (learn more here).
Will Shine is a co-host of Forecast. Consider thanking our contributors by leaving a comment, sharing this post or buying them a book. |
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