AAMA calls for New Orleans church help
Churches Supporting Churches sets goal for 360 congregational partnerships.
by June KrehbielPrint Article Email to a Friend
After Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast in September 2005, churches suffered—lacking not only bricks and mortar but emotional unity and stability. Since then, a national working group calling itself Churches Supporting Churches (CSC), is seeing to it that churches along the Gulf Coast are getting the help they need.
In Mennonite Church USA, the African-American Mennonite Association (AAMA) and Steven Brown, peace and social justice coordinator, calls the churchwide body to support CSC.
“These churches need help, and we in Mennonite Church USA have resources we can draw on to help them,” Brown says. He travels monthly to New Orleans for CSC, participating in two-day pastors’ institutes that give leadership training in community development, capacity building and advocacy.
“We need to get our Mennonite churches to consider partnering with CSC,” Brown says. “It is a work that we feel can certainly bring peace and calm. New Orleans is in a bad situation, particularly churches in the community.
“Half the residents have not come back to New Orleans. They are still missing over 200,000 residents. There’s a lot going on there that the media doesn’t show. You see homes that have not been gutted, churches not rebuilt, jobs not returned, [the] economy is bad.”
The CSC project, according to Brown, is assisting African-American congregations in 12 areas of New Orleans where Katrina destroyed or seriously damaged their facilities. The goal is to “restart, reopen, repair and rebuild the churches” so they can once again serve their communities.
“We feel that if churches aren’t backing the churches, who will?” Brown says.
The initial goal of CSC was to help 36 churches, not just with bricks and mortar donations but with spiritual support. CSC hopes to partner these 36 congregations in New Orleans with 360 congregations nationally on a 1-10 ratio over three years. Brown’s role is to help Mennonite Church USA congregations pair up with churches in the New Orleans area. Both financial resources and supportive relationships are needed.
“We now have five of those 36 churches in New Orleans up and running,” Brown said in early April.
“If CSC can pull this off, it would overshadow the politics and red tape that has threatened any progress in New Orleans,” Brown says.
The appeal from Brown, speaking for Mennonite Church USA, is for churches to join other congregations that have already committed to CSC.
“The wheels of progress turn very slowly. These congregations have been turned down by other organizations and have suffered a lot of road blocks,” Brown says. “We need some tangible help from congregations who can put legs under their prayers for the people of New Orleans.”
Brown sees this peace and social justice issue as the “beginning of the war on racism and poverty in New Orleans. Dr. King said there were three ills of society: poverty, racial injustice and militarism. Two of the three are present in New Orleans today.”
CSC also has the support of Mennonite Central Committee. Mennonite Disaster Service is considering CSC participation, according to Brown.
“We need the supporting churches to take the lead in this ecumenical effort for Churches Supporting Churches,” Brown says.
Mennonite Church USA churches interested in joining the Churches Supporting Churches effort in New Orleans should contact Steven Brown at 757-825-1133, ext. 206.
Working with him on CSC projects for Mennonite Church USA is Bob Zehr, former Gulf States Mennonite Conference minister. Donations to CSC can be mailed to African-American Mennonite Association (AAMA), 2311 Tower Place, Hampton, VA 23666.
Other denominations in CSC are Baptist Church Peace Fellowship of North America, Church of the Brethren, Every Church a Peace Church, Methodist Episcopal Church, Presbyterian Church-USA and Progressive National Baptist Convention.
June Krehbiel for Mennonite Church USA.
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Other denominations in CSC are Baptist Church Peace Fellowship of North America, Church of the Brethren, Every Church a Peace Church, Methodist Episcopal Church, Presbyterian Church-USA and Progressive National Baptist Convention.
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