SUTHERLAND SPRINGS (RNS)—The funerals had not yet been held, and the eulogies had not yet been delivered. But one thing was already clear in Sutherland Springs after one of the worst mass shootings at an American church: First Baptist Church will be razed.

The site where 26 people were shot dead by a lone gunman who sprayed the small sanctuary with hundreds of bullets will give way to a newly constructed church, a Southern Baptist Convention official said.

In what is becoming a grim American ritual, mass shooting sites from Sandy Hook to Columbine have been demolished and then rebuilt. But some churches that experienced horrific killings have sought to reclaim existing sacred spaces.

That’s not the case with First Baptist. Frank Page, president of the SBC Executive Committee, and Steve Gaines, the SBC’s president, confirmed the decision to demolish the church after meeting in Sutherland Springs with Frank Pomeroy, its grieving pastor.

“They did say, ‘We can’t go back in there,’” said Page, referring to Pomeroy’s remaining church members. “It’s going to be a reminder of the horrific violence against innocent people.”

Pomeroy and his wife, Sherri, were not at the church on Sunday when 26-year-old Devin Patrick Kelley opened fire. But their 14-year-old daughter, Annabelle, whom the couple adopted at age 2, was killed.

An anonymous donor agreed to fund the construction of a new church, Page said. The convention’s North American Mission Board has offered to pay for all of the funerals even though Texas’ Crime Victims’ Compensation program would have done so.

“We’re going to take care of our own people,” Page said.

The church structure may be in danger after hundreds of bullets pockmarked the walls. Sheriff Joe Tackitt Jr. of Wilson County described a gruesome scene of “blood everywhere” inside the church.

“You wouldn’t think they’d want to relive that,” said Andy Wyatt, a resident of Sutherland Springs who built themed vacation Bible study sets for children at First Baptist Church though he was not a member. “They deserve something bigger and better. You want to start fresh, anew.”

Not the first

That sort of fresh start after a mass atrocity has a long string of precedents:

• Columbine High School, where 13 people were killed and 21 were injured in a mass shooting in 1999, was partially rebuilt, including the library where many of the victims died.
• The site of the World Trade Center towers, destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001, is now a rebuilt complex with new skyscrapers, a memorial and museum.
• The Nickel Mines, Pa., schoolhouse where five Amish schoolgirls were murdered in 2006 was torn down and rebuilt.
• In Utoya, Norway, where 69 people—many of them minors—were killed at a church youth camp in 2011, one of the buildings where victims died was preserved, encompassed by a larger building with a memorial and interpretive center.
• Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., the site of the 2012 shooting that killed 20 children and six adults, was demolished and rebuilt. It reopened last year.

None of those locations were houses of worship, which are meant to be sacred spaces where people turn to the divine to find peace, calm and transcendence. They are also supposed to be places where people can be comforted, supported and healed, not terrorized and murdered.

Reclaim sacred space

Worshippers may feel the need to reclaim their sacred space. But that can be done in different ways.

Michelle Walsh, who teaches courses at Boston University on trauma and theology, studied a Knoxville Unitarian Universalist Church as it recovered after a lone gunman killed two and wounded seven during a children’s play in 2008.

Pews were realigned, walls were repainted, a curtain filled with bullet holes was removed but saved. A week after the killings, the church rededicated the sanctuary in a service that included blessing the spots where the dead fell and the hanging of a plaque. The whole thing concluded with a hymn, “May Nothing Evil Cross This Door.”

“I have said sometimes there is a fierceness for survivors who say, ‘We have survived this and we have a faith that survives even in the face of something like this,’” Walsh said. “It is a reclaiming and it is a marking of a place as not just a place of death, not just a place of loss, but of life.”

Other houses of worship have found ways to reclaim without rebuilding. After nine people, including the pastor, were killed during a Bible study in the basement at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., in 2015, church members hung pictures of the victims on the walls and continued to meet on Wednesday nights, their open Bibles before them. Their historic sanctuary was unaffected in the shooting.

And when six people were killed and four were wounded inside a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis., in 2012, worshippers did not abandon the sanctuary and even preserved some of the bullet holes.

“It frames the wound,” Pardeep Kaleka, son of former temple president Satwant Singh Kaleka, who died in the massacre, told The Associated Press. “The wound of our community, the wound of our family, the wound of our society.”

But in the case of the Sutherland Springs church shooting, it may be that the crime was so massive that rebuilding is necessary, said Steven Sewell, a Christian grief counselor who often works with churches experiencing trauma.

“Sometimes what happens in churches (that experience trauma) is they stay in the same place physically and spiritually when really it is impossible,” he said. “No one wants to be known as ‘that church’ where ‘that bad thing’ happened. So their rebuilding is what I like to call hidden greatness. That even in the midst of all of this tragedy, there is a hidden miracle that will come out.”

In any case, First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs will have to rebuild much more than its sanctuary. About half the congregation, including all its Sunday school teachers and many of its band leaders, were among those who perished, Page, the SBC official, said the pastor told him.

SAN ANTONIO—Axel Dieppa and Desiree Roman have seen God at work in the midst of uncertainty since their son, Sebastian, was born nine months ago with pulmonary atresia—a congestive heart defect.

“At the time, the only thing sustaining his life were machines,” Roman said.

Sebastian’s life was put at risk Sept. 20 when Hurricane Maria hit the family’s home in Puerto Rico, damaging it and leaving it without electricity.

For an extended time, Dieppa ventured out every day at 4 a.m. to seek fuel for a generator to power the machines on which his son’s life depended. The family knew they needed to find another solution.

Relocated to San Antonio

Three weeks ago, Puerto Rico Airlift flew the family to the continental United States. Now they are in San Antonio, where their son is hospitalized and a team of doctors is working on his case.

“There is still so much to do for Sebastian,” said Dieppa, the son of Roberto Dieppa, executive director of Baptist Churches of Puerto Rico, a regional partner of American Baptist Churches USA. “We do not know what will come. … We are truly waiting on God to supply our needs.”

Well-meaning but ineffective aid has added to the family’s hardship, as people have learned about their situation and arrived with assistance that is not needed or that cannot be used.

Currently, the family is staying in a studio apartment, and they received a significant amount of clothes and baby supplies. Although they likely will use those items at some point, they do not have space to store them in the small apartment. For a week, they had to stash them in a car someone rented for them.

For now, their greatest needs are financial. Dieppa cares for the couple’s two oldest children, while Roman tends to Sebastian at the hospital.

‘God … has brought us here’

Their family in Puerto Rico continues to experience a lack of resources and communication. So, while the couple experiences stress in many ways, they can still see how God has cared for them.

“It is God who has brought us here,” Dieppa said. “We know that it is God who gives us our help.”

The family’s funds are limited, and they soon will have to find a new place to live. They also remain dependent on others for temporary transportation.

Jesse Rincones, executive director of the Hispanic Baptist Convention of Texas, facilitated a car for Dieppa’s family, and has also put them in touch with the San Antonio Baptist Association. First Baptist Church in San Antonio committed to helping the family in the future when more details on housing and transportation become available, Rincones noted.

Dieppa has experience in ministry, and he hopes eventually to pursue a Master of Divinity degree and find a place of service on the continental United States.

For now, Sebastian’s health issues remain the family’s priority, so other plans remain on hold. But the couple noted their experience so far has demonstrated God’s faithfulness and ability to provide for them—through big problems and smaller issues.

SUTHERLAND SPRINGS (RNS)—After a day’s work, Jennifer Garcia drove from San Antonio to an intersection near First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, where she propped a homemade poster she and her 6-year-old son drew.

“Love conquers hate,” it said in a flag-themed red, white and blue drawing with stars and hearts, joining the heaps of flowers and teddy bears constituting a makeshift shrine near the church where a mass shooter killed 26 people at Sunday services.

Wiping away tears, Garcia said, she felt compelled to drive 30 miles with her husband and two sons and join the hundreds who came to stand beside the people of Sutherland Springs. Later, church groups hosted an impromptu churchlike outdoor vigil.

“I was crying all day yesterday, and I thought, ‘We have to come down,’” she said.

Tragedy galvanized faith community

On top of hordes of journalists, the well-wishers nearly choked the town with cars and dust. That didn’t appear to faze the townspeople, though some grumbling was heard about the onslaught of media teams in this tiny unincorporated community.

Sunday’s shooting rampage—the worst in Texas history—claimed about 4 percent of the town’s approximately 600 residents.

It also galvanized faith-based charities, from the Salvation Army to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, to shower the town with prayers.

At a news conference beside the town’s only blinking red light, Freeman Martin, regional director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said a domestic dispute likely led shooter Devin Patrick Kelley to empty 15 magazines from a military-style rifle, first outside and then inside the church.

Kelley may have been hoping to target his mother-in-law, a worshipper at First Baptist, although she was not there Sunday. After bystanders shot Kelley in the leg and torso, he took off on a high-speed chase and later crashed his vehicle. Martin said the third and fatal bullet, to Kelley’s head, appeared self-inflicted.

Less than 24 hours later, 26 metal crosses shaped like clover leaves and attached to thin wooden dowels were dug into a hayfield.

Words of hope and consolation

Monday night’s vigil included a charismatic-style service, with a band from San Antonio and a procession of Christian ministers offering words of hope and consolation.

“Sutherland Springs, you are not alone and you are not forgotten,” said Mike Gonzales, one of half a dozen preachers at the vigil. “Our nation has gathered to be with you—for as long as it takes.”

A handful of rapid-response chaplains trained by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association prayed with groups of people. American Red Cross workers handed out water and clamshell containers with rice, beans, chicken and cornbread from a mobile unit.

While the vigil was clearly a Christian gathering, people of other faiths attended. A group of about 20 Muslims—including some from the Muslim Children Education and Civic Center in San Antonio—drove into town to stand with the bereaved.

“We just felt we had to do something,” said Omar Husain, the group’s religious director.

Many of those gathered waved their arms in the air as a band from San Antonio called the Sold-Out Believers Christian Fellowship played.

At one point, the band urged those clustered around the gravel road near a baseball field to turn on their mobile flashlight apps and wave them, creating a candlelike concert effect.

Michael Mendoza, who has lived in Sutherland Springs 25 years, said he simply came to connect with his grieving townspeople.

“It’s mind-numbingly shocking,” he said.

LEWISVILLE—Joseph Fields, founding pastor of New Beginnings Baptist Church in Lewisville, will be nominated for a second term as first vice president of the Baptist General Convention of Texas at its annual meeting, Nov. 12-14 in Waco.

‘Heart for missions and for serving God’

“Joe Fields has a heart for missions and for serving God,” said Craig Christina, pastor of Shiloh Terrace Baptist Church in Dallas, when he announced his intention to nominate Fields. “He is pastor of missions-minded church that is supportive of the Cooperative Program through the BGCT.”

Fields grew New Beginnings from a group of six people who met in his living room in 2009 to a congregation of 900 members and an average attendance of 400, and he continues to have a heart for church planting and cooperative missions, Christina noted.

New Beginnings is one of the top African-American Texas Baptist churches in terms of missions giving through the BGCT Cooperative Program, he added.

“Joe has represented Texas Baptists well,” he said, and his re-election helps ensure the voices of all ethnic and racial groups in Texas Baptist life are heard.

Serving Texas Baptists the past year has been “an honor and a privilege,” Fields said.

“I feel this is an assignment I was called to do,” he said, explaining he agreed to allow his nomination for a second term out of obedience to God’s leadership.

“I love the Lord, and I love Texas Baptists,” he said. “It is a privilege to be able to listen to groups of people around the state, as well as to help initiatives and policies of the convention.”

‘A sleeping giant’

Fields hopes to continue to let Texas Baptist churches and their leaders know about the resources available through the BGCT.

“My goal is to share across the state the vast resources we have as a convention,” he said. “I believe we are a sleeping giant as far as being a resource to churches.”

Fields also wants to encourage congregations to support Texas Baptists’ ministries through giving to the Cooperative Program unified budget.

“Together, we can do so much more, and the Cooperative Program is at the heart of that,” he said.

New Beginnings benefited from Texas Baptists’ support, he noted.

“Cooperation is in my DNA,” Fields said. “It’s a model that I believe is biblical, and I want to express the value of what we can do by cooperating together.”

Before he started New Beginnings, Fields was youth minister at Westside Baptist Church in Lewisville, and he was director of Camp Exalted, a BGCT-sponsored camp for African-American youth.

He earned both a diploma in theology and an advanced diploma in theology from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

He and his wife Shanta have two children, Austen and Courtney.

SUTHERLAND SPRINGS—A lone gunman dressed in black tactical gear opened fire at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs halfway through the 11 a.m. worship service Nov. 5, killing 26 people and wounding 20.

A spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety said 23 of the dead were discovered inside the church building, two were found outside, and one died after being transported to a hospital. On Tuesday, 10 remained in critical condition and four were in serious condition.

Those killed ranged in age from 18 months to 77 years old, and they included Annabelle Pomeroy, the 14-year-old daughter of Pastor Frank Pomeroy and his wife Sherri, who were traveling out of state on Sunday.

In Pomeroy’s absence, Bryan Holcombe was preaching. He and his wife Karla were among the casualties, along with their son, 36-year-old Marc Daniel Holcombe, and his infant daughter, Noah; their daughter-in-law, Crystal, who was pregnant, and three of Crystal’s children, Emily, Megan and Greg.

The shooting suspect, Devin Patrick Kelley of New Braunfels, was found dead in his vehicle several miles from the church. Kelley was court-martialed and received a bad-conduct discharge from the U.S. Air Force after assaulting his wife and child.

Law enforcement officials reported Kelley had sent threatening texts to his mother-in-law, who sometimes attended First Baptist Church. Neither Kelley’s estranged wife nor her parents were at the church Nov. 5.

‘Pure evil’

“There are no words to describe the pure evil that we witnessed in Sutherland Springs today,” said Gov. Gregg Abbott, who called the attack the worst mass shooting in Texas history.

“Our hearts are heavy at the anguish in this small town, but in time of tragedy, we see the very best of Texas. May God comfort those who’ve lost a loved one, and may God heal the hurt in our communities.”

Previously, the deadliest mass shooting in Texas was an October 1991 massacre in Killeen, when a man drove his pickup truck through the front window of a Luby’s Cafeteria at noon and then began shooting, killing 23 people and injuring more than two dozen others.

In June 1980, a shooter entered First Baptist Church in Daingerfield, killing five people and injuring 10 others. In September 1999, a gunman opened fire during a worship service for youth at Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, killing seven people and wounding seven.

Expressions of concern

David Hardage, executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, posted a message on his Twitter feed Sunday afternoon: “Our @TexasBaptists family sends our deepest sympathy to the FBC Sutherland Springs church family. #grace&peace.”

First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs is uniquely affiliated with the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention.

Fred Ater, Texas Baptists’ area representative for the region, noted on Monday morning pastors of several churches in Gambrell Baptist Association and the surrounding area already had been involved in ministry to the affected congregation and community.

Texas Baptist Men noted in a Facebook post its close ties to First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs through Royal Ambassadors, the missions program for boys.

“We are heartbroken over the loss yesterday. We have a personal connection with several in the church. Some of our RA leaders and families were among the casualties,” said the social media statement posted about 9:30 a.m. Nov. 6.

TBM deployed chaplains to the Sutherland Springs Community Center and to Brooks Army Medical Center

“Our chaplains have worked through the night and into the morning hours as names were released. We are bracing for more that are expected to come today. More chaplains are en route this morning to help with the great need.”

Dan Franklin, associate endorser for chaplains with the BGCT, noted the Texas Crisis Resiliency Team had not been deployed, but two individuals the ministry trained were serving with another group in the wake of the Sutherland Springs shooting.

“They do know that all of us are continuing to pray for them, and we are here to support them,” Franklin said.

This article originally was posted Monday morning, Nov. 6, and was updated Tuesday morning, Nov. 7.

HOUSTON—Instead of going home or traveling during fall break, a group of Baylor University students used their time away from classes to serve the communities affected by Hurricane Harvey.

Fifty-five students and three faculty and staff members joined Baylor Missions on a mission trip to provide a helping hand to families in Houston as they work to restore their lives.

Cooperative effort

Baylor Missions partnered with Heritage Park Baptist Church, Fifth Ward Community Redevelopment Corporation, Preemptive Love Coalition, Houston resident Penelope Moore, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board to begin the process of rebuilding homes.

At night, team members worshipped and rested at South Main Baptist Church in midtown Houston before heading out the next day to work in the community.

“I was inspired to go with students to Houston as soon as I saw e-mails that Baylor Missions was sending people. Baylor in general, but especially Baylor Spiritual Life, had been so diligent about reminding me of my connection to Houston,” said Elijah Tanner, resident chaplain for Gordon Teal Residential College.

“Even though no one I know was affected directly, Dr. (Burt) Burleson reminded everyone that our spirits are still greatly impacted by the suffering of others. As much as I recognize the importance of prayer and financial aid, the fact that this tragedy was so close to home made me feel like it would be a missed opportunity if I didn’t go.”

Baylor students worked from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Oct. 13-15, installing drywall in homes, removing water-damaged debris and applying waterproofing materials before walls were rebuilt.

Learning is greatest skill

Louisiana senior Julia Stricklin was assigned to a site in the Addicks Reservoir, where residents’ houses took on about four feet of water. Tasked with measuring, cutting and stapling Tyvek paper, Stricklin discovered the ability to learn is a powerful tool in relief efforts.

“All students are professional learners, and I think that was our greatest skill going into this project. None of us had any previous experience with home reconstruction, but we listened and learned how to do it, and ended up doing a pretty bang-up job,” Stricklin said. “I think that it will be important to keep that with me as I grow, and I know that as long as I have the desire to help, I also have the ability to learn how to help.”

She also witnessed how her seemingly small contribution was an important addition to the overall relief effort.

“Our work was not particularly significant or profound. We did not completely rebuild a house back into move-in ready condition, but we did our part and what was needed to the best of our ability,” Stricklin said.

“Like many great works, there was no instant gratification from this trip, but rather we contributed to a greater cause. I think this resembles our everyday lives in the kingdom (of God). Not every day may be significant and life-changing, but you can do something worthwhile that will contribute to a great work.”

Baylor Missions seeks to create tangible opportunities for students to understand how they can use the knowledge and skills they gain at Baylor to love people around the world and in the Waco area.

Long-term commitment

Jill Hatcher, project coordinator for Baylor Missions, anticipates students will serve others through five or more Harvey-related trips and 50 domestic and international trips during the rest of the school year.

“With a catastrophic event of the magnitude of Hurricane Harvey, it isn’t a quick recovery. It is a slow and ongoing process that could take years,” Hatcher said.

“All of Baylor Missions is centered on long-term commitment. We return to the same areas because in all mission efforts, we come up with a project that we can support long term. We come with long-term commitment because we want to represent the presence of Christ.”

Baylor Missions also organizes discipline-specific mission trips, so they can stay true to their desire to help Baylor students combine their academic focus and their faith.

In future hurricane-relief missions, Baylor’s School of Education plans to take a trip to support students and teachers who are behind on the school year due to the impact of the hurricane. Leadership students will help in schools to encourage leaders to arise and support their communities in new ways. The athletics department is even considering a mission trip to teach sports but also get children caught up on fun they may have lost while withstanding the hurricane.

Hatcher was humbled by the collective response among the Baylor Spiritual Life staff and the student body to meet an ongoing need only a few hours away from Waco.

“It is an interesting thing when Christ calls us to do something and we sacrifice to do what he has called us to do,” Hatcher said. “The students sacrificed free time, study time and midterms, which were before the mission trip, and God was faithful. They were able to accomplish great things, and they got to see God work.”

Overall, students learned a lot about servanthood and true compassion from their experiences during the trip.

“It was one enormous opportunity which I saw that could measure my spiritual growth as a follower of Christ,” said California senior Anthony Gasso Jr. “As a believer, I think it should be my natural response to love people. Yet, I often find myself only loving people with my words and not enough with my God-given abilities. We Baylor students will soon become professionals and great leaders in our respected fields, but before we graduate, it is important that we learn how to become great servants first.”

ROSHARON—It’s 2:15 on a Thursday afternoon, and Butch Green is trying to figure out the correct pipe fitting for a prefabricated shower.

That’s not in Green’s job description for Cooperative Baptist Fellowship field personnel. But it aligns with Green’s heart, which propels him to serve people who have endured some of life’s harshest blows.

On this day, Green huddles with Peter Sar, a farmer, and Dale Feeler, a volunteer from First Baptist Church in Jefferson City, Mo. They’re standing in Sar’s home in rural Rosharon, south of Houston. Hurricane Harvey flooded Sar’s entire neighborhood of Cambodian refugees.

All in a day’s work

Solving construction problems is all in a day’s work—at least for the time being—for Green. After Harvey hit, he relinquished most of his day job to coordinate CBF disaster recovery along the Texas Gulf Coast. So now, he keeps tabs on homeowners’ and churches’ needs and handles logistics for volunteer recovery teams. Sometimes, he ponders a plumbing riddle.

From the road, Rosharon and most of the Houston area look normal. Floodwaters receded, leaving the landscape lush and green. But inside, flooded-out homes reveal a different story.

“Right now, everybody’s mucked out and dried out,” Green explained of homes stripped down to studs. “Supplies are beginning to be donated.”

Meanwhile, local CBF congregations, platoons of volunteers from churches elsewhere and CBF personnel are helping homeowners whose insurance and FEMA support aren’t enough to stabilize them again.

More volunteer groups needed

A cloud crosses Green’s face as he thinks about what lies ahead.

“I’m concerned, because (volunteer) groups are trailing off,” he said. Three will arrive before Thanksgiving, but none are set for December. One team will work in January, and two each are scheduled for spring break and next summer.

Green expresses confidence other CBF groups will make plans to help the region recover, but he hopes they’ll step up sooner rather than later.

“This is the optimal time for hanging sheetrock,” he said, noting many homes are ready to be refurbished. But he needs volunteers ready to put homes and lives back together.

Specialists are in demand, too. “We always can use plumbers and electricians,” he noted.

A long history of flexibility

Green’s flexibility—willingness to let go of ongoing ministries in order to facilitate something historically urgent—reflects the versatility that has marked the career he and his wife, Nell, have embraced across three decades and three continents.

They began in France in 1986 and a year later moved to Senegal, West Africa, where they served seven years.

The Greens joined CBF in 1994 and worked with Touching Miami With Love, which grew out of CBF response to Hurricane Andrew. Then they trekked back to Europe, to Belgium, where they worked with Muslims from North Africa.

Next, they returned to the United States and settled in South Carolina, teaching Christians how to relate to Muslims. A transfer to Canada fell through, and they worked in Baltimore for about six months, wondering where they should serve next.

Home again

That proved to be Houston, an assignment that brought them home to Texas in February 2011. Butch lived in Houston through the sixth grade and graduated from high school in Van. Nell grew up in South Louisiana but moved to Texas and graduated from high school in Madisonville.

“We felt coming here was a God thing, even though it happened in a round-about way,” he marvels. “Houston is the most diverse city in the nation, with 250,000 Muslims. We felt affirmed to be called here.”

Across the past seven years, the Greens have helped resettle refugees, who have flooded into Houston faster than to any other U.S. city; worked with international students; sponsored interfaith dialogues with Muslims, who worship in about 100 mosques in the area; and combatted human trafficking, a major scourge in the region.

‘All about the relationships’

Their initial response to Hurricane Harvey mirrored their ongoing ministries.

On Friday night, Aug. 25, Nell maintained ongoing text contact with a co-worker from Afghanistan whose family of six watched in horror as floodwaters rose up to their second-floor apartment.

Then they spoke on the phone with a friend, a former international student who earned her Ph.D. from the University of Houston and who was communicating with seven other international students who had crawled into an attic before climbing onto their roof and swimming to safety. Even later, they received a call from a partner in their trafficking ministry about a stranded client who seemed to be going into labor. Nell is a nurse, and just before the Greens headed into the storm, the young woman’s labor stopped.

“Those people all were affected in different ways, but they reflect three aspects of our ministry,” he recalls. “It’s all about the relationships. Those people contacted us because they trust us.”

Building and maintaining relationships is a key component of disaster recovery, he says. “We want to get (disaster recovery) work done. But relationships are 10 times more important. … After a few weeks, when the reality of Harvey soaked in, people felt the burden. We sat with them, talking and praying.”

And the Greens put feet to those prayers by facilitating CBF recovery efforts in and around Houston. Butch is hands-on, coordinating work sites. Nell keeps communication moving through social media.

They are focused on three areas:

• Rural Rosharon, home to the Cambodian refugee farmers.
• South Houston, where many of Houston’s Hispanic residents live and where Templo Bautista de Houston has been a hub of work.
• The Fifth Ward, an African-American community in the northeastern quadrant of the city, where Pleasant Hill Baptist Church and the Fifth Ward Community Redevelopment Corporation are providing energy and stability.

For his part, Green has found joy in his newfound on-demand ministry.

“It’s a blessing to see volunteers come and be what we’re supposed to be—the church helping people in need,” he explains. “We’re doing what CBF is all about—helping the marginalized, those who need help the most.

“We’re not huge, but we’re doing our best, and we’re here for the long haul.”

For more information or to register to help with Hurricane Harvey recovery:

• Visit CBF’s Hurricane Harvey webpage.
• Contact Green directly—(803) 517-3735; bgreen@cbf.net
• Contact Anyra Cano, CBF’s Harvey-recovery coordinator—acano@cbf.net

HOUSTON—Mental health may offer the 21^st century church its greatest mission opportunity, behavioral neuroscientist Matthew Stanford told a statewide conference in Houston.

“One in five Americans experience mental illness in a given year—44 million adults,” Stanford, chief executive officer of the Hope and Healing Center in Houston, told participants at the No Need Among You Conference.

The Texas Christian Community Development Network sponsored the event, Oct. 25-27 at Good Hope Missionary Baptist Church in Houston.

Lack of treatment

However, he noted, six out of 10 adults and half of children and adolescents receive no mental health services.

“The majority of people in the United States with mental illness receive no treatment,” said Stanford, former professor of psychology, neuroscience and biomedical studies at Baylor University.

Barriers to treatment include accessibility, affordability and acceptability, he noted. Stanford pointed to the prevalence of mental illness particularly among two populations—the homeless and the incarcerated.

“Thirty percent of the homeless show evidence of mental illness,” Stanford said.

Furthermore, there are 10 times as many mental ill individuals in jails and prisons as in state hospitals, he reported.

Opportunity for ministry

Churches are uniquely positioned to minister to people with mental health issues, he insisted.

“Individuals experiencing psychological distress are more likely to go to clergy before engaging a physician or mental health provider,” he said. “This is especially true in minority populations.”

Often, mental health professionals have viewed ministers as gatekeepers charged with the responsibility of making appropriate referrals, but a major problem exists with the gatekeeper model, Stanford asserted.

“Nobody told them (clergy) they are gatekeepers,” he said.

Ministers need training to recognize mental illness and guidance in learning when, where and how to provide referrals, Stanford said.

‘Relieve suffering, reveal Christ, restore lives’

While referrals are appropriate in many circumstances, churches and their leaders also can offer direct ministry to people who have mental health issues through support groups, he insisted.

Stanford pointed to peer-led trauma recovery groups he helped launch in Libya for people traumatized by natural disasters, war and famine. In the wake of Hurricane Harvey, churches along the Texas Gulf Coast could offer similar lay-led groups, he suggested.

He cited Healing the Wounds of Trauma, a book from the American Bible Society and its Trauma Healing Institute, as an easy-to-use, biblically sound, field-tested resource. Stanford serves on the institute’s advisory council.

Churches are called to “relieve suffering, reveal Christ and restore lives,” he said.

HOUSTON—Compassionate acts become toxic when they strip people of dignity and foster unhealthy dependency rather than empowerment, psychologist Bob Lupton told a conference focused on meeting needs.

Lupton, author of Toxic Charity, drew a sharp distinction between crisis need and chronic need.

“Crisis need demands emergency intervention,” he said, citing disaster relief after Hurricane Harvey as an example. “Chronic need requires development—to put lives back together. If we address a crisis need with emergency intervention, lives are saved. If we address chronic need with emergency response, people are harmed.”

When churches and charities respond to chronic need with one-way giving, they can end up hurting the people they want to help, Lupton told the No Need Among You Conference. The Texas Christian Community Development Network sponsored the Oct. 25-27 conference at Good Hope Missionary Baptist Church in Houston.

Problem with ‘one-way giving’

One-way giving may prompt appreciation the first time it is offered, he noted. But repeated gifts create a downward spiral—from anticipation, to expectation, to entitlement, to dependency.

Likewise, paternalistic top-down ministry to the poor rather than alongside the poor feeds feelings of superiority by the giver and creates resentment among recipients, he observed.

Lupton, a Christian community developer, recalled a conversation with his inner-city Atlanta neighbor, Virgil, who told him he hated it when groups of church volunteers arrived in his community for mission projects.

“They mean well, and they want to do good. But they insult you, and they don’t even know it,” he said.

Volunteers’ comments about the surprisingly clean homes and well-behaved children of families whom they adopted as “projects” revealed condescending and paternalistic attitudes, he noted.

Similarly, Lupton, founding president of Focused Community Strategies urban ministries, remembered a popular “adopt-a-family” program in which he had been involved.

Church groups purchased toys for children and delivered them at Christmas. Typically, the children responded with joy and excitement. Mothers normally were gracious but reserved.

“The dads disappeared,” Lupton recalled, recognizing the fathers could not bear to have their economic impotence and inability to provide exposed in front of their families.

In time, “Pride for Parents” replaced the “adopt-a-family” program. Instead of outsiders delivering donated toys to children, the ministry invited parents to purchase donated toys for their children at a discount. If parents had no money to purchase toys, the ministry hired them to work in the toy store.

Similarly, the ministry’s clothes closet developed into a thrift store, and the food pantry became a food cooperative in which consumers paid a small membership fee and had a voice in grocery selection.

Focus on community assets

Christian community development demands a change in perspective—focusing on assets already present in the community instead of assessing needs and looking for resources outside the community to meet those needs, Lupton said.

“Instead of seeing neighbors as people with need, it involves seeing our neighbors as people with resources, talents and abilities,” he said. “There is talent in every community. Everybody has something of value to contribute to the community.”

Instead of one-way giving, development creates systems of reciprocity, he explained.

“At every level of humanity, there is capacity,” he said.

Oath for Compassionate Service

Lupton offered a six-point Oath for Compassionate Service, inspired in part by the Hippocratic Oath physicians follow.

• Never do for others what they have the capacity to do for themselves. “It weakens them,” he said.
• Limit one-way giving to crises. “Seek always to find ways of legitimate exchange,” he urged.
• Empower by hiring, lending and investing. Offer gifts sparingly as incentives to reinforce achievements. “Hiring is an honorable exchange. Lending brings accountability. Investing opens up new opportunities,” he said. “The highest form of charity is making money with the poor—not on the poor and not for the poor.”
• Put the interests of the poor above one’s own self-interests or the interests of one’s organization. That includes setting aside personal agendas, he added.
• Listen carefully for spoken and unspoken needs. “Know that many clues may be hidden,” he noted.
• Above all, do no harm.

This is part of an ongoing series about how Christians respond to hunger and poverty. Substantive coverage of significant issues facing Texas Baptists is made possible in part by a grant from the Prichard Family Foundation.

HOUSTON—Biblical justice not only requires individual restoration, but also demands transformation of unjust systems, social justice advocate Michelle Warren told a Christian community development conference.

“If you wake up in the morning and the system works for you, you think it’s a good system,” said Warren, advocacy and strategic engagement director for the Chicago-based Christian Community Development Association.

Proximity to the poor—intentionally living as neighbors with people in poverty—provides middle-class Christians a different perspective on systemic injustice, Warren told the No Need Among You Conference. The Texas Christian Community Development Network sponsored the event, Oct. 25-27 at Good Hope Missionary Baptist Church in Houston.

‘Journey to justice’

Warren began her “journey to justice” when she and her family moved into a neighborhood where they were in the minority—racially, ethnically and socio-economically.

As she sought to “be a good neighbor” to those around her, she grew to understand perspectives different from the comfortable, middle-class, evangelical Christian culture in which she had been raised. In time, she discovered she was “arrogant and uninformed” about unfair systems that made life difficult for her neighbors.

“As a Christian, being a neighbor is not a small calling,” said Warren, author of The Power of Proximity: Moving Beyond Awareness to Action. 

In Warren’s case, she said, love for neighbor compelled her to work to fix a broken system that tells undocumented immigrants, “We want your work, but we don’t want you.”

Warren grew to understand the importance of justice in Scripture. Justice means restoration—spiritually, relationally and economically, she asserted.

‘Justice is a biblical word’

“Justice gets a bad rap. … Justice is a biblical word,” she insisted. “If you want to know the heart of God, justice is at the center.”

Christians must move from occasional acts of mercy to a lifestyle that seeks justice and wholeness for everyone, Warren said.

Pointing to the parable of the Good Samaritan, she quoted Martin Luther King Jr.: “On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day, we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway.”

Transformation of unjust systems demands a long-term commitment, she noted.

“Justice is not on a timeline, and it’s not on a to-do list,” she said. “We have to be committed for the long haul.”

Key components

In a related workshop, Warren outlined eight key components of a Christian approach to community development:

• Relocation. “It’s hard to be a neighbor from a distance,” she said. Proximity to the poor provides Christian community developers “a front-row seat” to witness transformation, she added.
• Reconciliation. The gospel is about building bridges, she noted. Evangelicals recognize the vital importance of reconciling a person to God in Christ. But a justice-oriented approach also seeks person-to-person and people-group-to-people-group reconciliation.
• Redistribution. Economic development and social justice are essential elements of Christian community development, she asserted. Redistribution involves repairing and resetting broken systems, as well as setting right unjust power structures and surrendering privilege. “Redistribution tests our commitment to reconciliation,” Warren said.
• Leadership development. Community development raising a new generation of leaders “from the people, for the people,” she said.
• Church-based. Christ-centered, biblical community development means building a community that worships together and holds its members spiritually accountable. “Church enables us to act like family,” she said.
• Listening to the community. Programs are not imposed from the outside. Ideas arise from the grassroots community. Build on the assets already present in the community.
• Wholistic. It includes mental, spiritual, social, economic, political, cultural, emotional and physical dimensions.
• Empowerment. “Design a plan that ensures transferability,” she said, noting it should not be dependent upon an individual from outside the community. “Do not do for a person what they can do for themselves. Give people responsibility that is appropriate. And follow their leadership.”

This is part of an ongoing series about how Christians respond to hunger and poverty. Substantive coverage of significant issues facing Texas Baptists is made possible in part by a grant from the Prichard Family Foundation.

McALLEN—Calvary Baptist Church in McAllen understands that to minister to people, Christians need to build bridges to them.

In 2012, the church’s Spanish-speaking congregation, Calvary en Español, created Bridges—a series of strategies to embrace neighbors and develop their community educationally, emotionally, spiritually and socially.

‘Here to care for people’

Elizabeth Zamora, community ministries associate at Calvary, estimates 85 to 90 percent of the community surround the church is Hispanic, and many are low-income families who face chronic hunger.

“We have programs to address health, and nutrition education,” Zamora said. “We want to be here to care for people.”

The church offers programs like Bread of Life, a food pantry that distributes groceries to families the second Saturday of every month, and Zumba Fitness, an exercise class for adults and children.

Like many organizations dealing with hunger and poverty, Calvary has limited resources, which restricts the help the congregation can provide. But Zamora discovered collaborative partnerships with other organizations improve effectiveness. Calvary has five partnerships with other organizations.

Through these types of programs, Zamora sees Calvary building relationships with the community, but that can take a lot of time, resources and passion.

“For people to be part of this, the most important requirement is to have a passion to help others,” Zamora emphasized.

Nutrition classes

About six weeks ago, Calvary began offering nutrition classes through the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension program.  Emilia Padron, a nutritional education assistant, teaches the eight-week course, instructing her students about portions, recipes and the groundwork necessary to have a healthy diet at home.

Students learn to implement better nutrition at home and also improve their employment opportunities, since the certificate they receive at the end of the course is necessary for a food handler’s permit.

The course—offered in both English and Spanish—underlines the importance of parents passing information on to their children.

One of the students, Alicia Teran, already has seen the benefits of the class.

“I had been told I was on my way to being a diabetic, and the only solution was to do something about my diet,” Teran said. “This class has helped me to change my lifestyle.”

At the end of every class, Padron teaches the class to prepare a healthy dish.

“We learn to know what is nutritious, and what foods we should avoid,” said Teran, who no longer is at risk of diabetes.

The relationship of the church with the community is holistic, Zamora said. Even in small ways, like offering a nutrition class, Calvary knows the church can build bridges of hope when its members care for the whole need of a person.

“We care about their spiritual needs, which go along all of their other needs, which can be emotional, mental or physical,” she observed.

This is part of an ongoing series about how Christians respond to hunger and poverty. Substantive coverage of significant issues facing Texas Baptists is made possible in part by a grant from the Prichard Family Foundation.

HOUSTON—Love for one’s neighbor compels Christians to confront the reality of racism, D.Z. Cofield told participants at the No Need Among You Conference.

“Some of us like to park at the meter of hate,” said Cofield, pastor of Good Hope Missionary Baptist Church in Houston, host site of the Oct. 25-27 conference, sponsored by the Texas Christian Community Development Network.

“You need to recognize you are expected to love all people,” Cofield said, pointing out Christians too often tend to define narrowly the objects of their love.

Love beyond theology

“We must love even beyond what our theological position proclaims,” he added.

As evidence of lack of love based on flawed theology, Cofield cited the “cornerstone speech” Alexander Stephens, vice president of the Confederate States of America, delivered in 1861. In it, Stephens declared as the cornerstone of the Confederacy “the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man.” Stephens went on to justify white supremacy by quoting Scripture.

Rather than recognizing all humanity is created in God’s image, racism creates God in the image of the person espousing the racist ideology, Cofield asserted.

“If we cannot love all people, we are not really practicing the gospel,” he said. “You need to realize loving all people reveals that the true love of God is really in you. … Love beyond comfort. Love beyond what is convenient.

“You must commit to doing all you can to grow in your love for all people. Grow in the kind of people you give love to. Grow in the amount of love you give to people.”

Seek diversity

Diversity in the church includes racial, ethnic and cultural diversity, said Ikki Soma, pastor of the multicultural City of Refuge Church in Houston. But it also includes socio-economic, political, educational and generational diversity, he told participants at the conference.

Soma described the challenges and blessing of ministry in a context where a blue-collar laborer working on his GED high-school-equivalency diploma worships alongside a graduate student pursuing her Ph.D.

He also noted close affiliation with any political party prevents a church from becoming truly diverse—including racially in a country where most white evangelicals identify as Republican and most African-American evangelicals identify as Democrats.

Pointing to the Great Whore of Babylon in Revelation 17, Soma warned against the church—the Bride of Christ—prostituting itself for the sake of political power, worldly influence and wealth.

Instead, he called on churches to emulate the diversity pictured elsewhere in Revelation, where people of every nation, tribe and language worship Christ.

In the midst of “a proud and arrogant world,” worship in a multicultural context teaches humility, “seeing self rightly in the eyes of God,” Soma said.

A multi-ethnic congregation also provides members opportunities to grow in at least two other fruit of the Spirit, he added.

Members who are part of the majority population who have grown up with power and privilege learn gentleness and meekness, which Soma defined as “power under control.” Members who are part of the minority population who have been denied access and opportunity learn patience, which he defined as “anger stretched wide.”