ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, August 1, 1996 TAG: 9608020001
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: E6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FRANCES STEBBINS STAFF WRITER
"It's easy for people who don't know churches to say we ought to be doing more for the poor, but most churches are too small to make an impact unless they work together," says the Rev. Elliott Hipp, pastor of Southeast Roanoke's Belmont Presbyterian Church.
And working together, adds the Rev. Sam McPhail of Belmont United Methodist, "takes a lot of education, commitment, money and volunteers."
The secret is networking with religiously committed social service people.
It helps when there's an ecumenical mission in the neighborhood, like the Presbyterian Community Center or the Rescue Mission of Roanoke. Director of Development Tom MacMichael of the Presbyterian center says his agency needs the churches to give continuing hope in the goodness of people trying to follow the compassion of Christ, especially to welfare mothers who want their children to have a better life than they've had.
Hipp, McPhail and MacMichael are trying to make a difference for such children in Southeast. In cooperation with Waverly Place Baptist, Ninth Street Church of the Brethren, Belmont Disciples of Christ congregations and the Rescue Mission, their supporters are volunteering to help with a children's health clinic, parenting classes for inexperienced moms and dads and a literacy program to help both adults and children read more and better.
It's a small dent in the overwhelming need of the inner-city poor, MacMichael pointed out. He cited a single mother with two pre-schoolers who is trying to survive with $603 monthly from a welfare check and a food stamp allotment. Seeking full-time work, she's been helped by the Presbyterian center - and has supported its programs - for four years, he said.
Cooperative ministry to serve Southeast's poor has had many years of planning by its churches, McPhail noted. The seeds of good intentions have often resulted in spindly plants that have died like some of the young lives that might have been made productive, the three men agreed.
Groundwork, said Hipp, had been laid by many pastors and lay social service people, so that when he came to Belmont Presbyterian five years ago just out of Princeton Theological Seminary, he found a congregation ready to help neighborhood people. Hipp, 37, wanted that too. He previously had been a legal advocate for the poor in New York.
Soon he found in Methodist Pastor McPhail another clergyman with a social conscience. Needing support from each other, the two pastors and then a few lay leaders established Lenten studies and some other learning and fellowship events together. Gradually, leaders of the three other churches have joined in and several weeks ago set up Southeast Roanoke Christian Partnership, which has been approved verbally by the seven supporting groups.
Leaders in the congregations involved, as well as the evangelical Rescue Mission and the community center, have studied extensively the day-to-day needs of the city's poor. Some groups, McPhail noted, are further along than others in doing practical ministry. Stronger reading skills to help both adults and children better themselves is the Methodist choice for ministry.
When the board of the Presbyterian Center got enough church grant money to employ MacMichael in 1995 and Margaret Martin earlier this year, it was able to find more church volunteers to help with a Roanoke Health Department children's wellness clinic housed since 1994 at Hipp's parish. MacMichael said he does legwork for the center and knows how to find additional money for its service work. Martin's job, he said, has already paid off in getting more volunteers.
The Disciples, Brethren and Baptist congregations that are part of the partnership are considering after-school care, free or low-cost counseling and a firewood ministry to help Southeast residents. One or more of the churches may also promote a youth project, Hipp said.
The partnership, in the long run, will help the church members as much as those they want to help, Hipp predicted. Both he and his Methodist colleague say they have seen their members enriched by sharing in studies and worship. The parenting classes and children's wellness clinics have resulted in friendships for some young adults desperate for someone to care about their problems, MacMichael said.
In early fall, the Southeast Partnership plans a Saturday afternoon community festival in Jackson Park to help make residents aware of services available.
LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (From left) Ciara Ondell, 3; Presbyterian Communityby CNBCenter Director of Development Tom MacMichael; Dillon Ondell, 16
months; and Yvette Ondell at a parenting workshop at Belmont
Presbyterian Church. ALAN SPEARMAN STAFF