As part of our “Hope for the Politically Homeless” series, Vincent Bacote, Ph.D., asks: What is a disciple of Jesus to do when the tensions rise, particularly in political context that leaves one with a sense of homelessness?
Iglesia Presbiteriana Nuevas Fronteras: Faithfully Serving Its Community
The multicultural, multilingual church located in the heart of Plainfield, NJ, is defined by its name Iglesia Presbiteriana Nuevas Fronteras. It is represented by a congregation of dedicated Christians from 17 countries throughout North America, South America, and the Caribbean. The church is a representation of the mostly Latino/a immigrant population of the Plainfield community, with this demographic leading the populous at 43.8 percent.
Nuevas Fronteras is home to many Spanish speaking immigrants and second-generation Americans who are marginalized. In 2017, 22.9 percent of Plainfield’s residents lived in poverty. These rates were 12.3% for white non-Hispanic residents, 16.4% for Blacks, 27.0% for Hispanic, 63% for American Indians and 31.8% for other races and residents and 8.0% for two or more races. This home away from home incorporates the mixed cultures of its community through worship, music, and fellowship while providing services to the community such as vacation bible study, La Cocina Caliente, immigration assistance, job preparation, a clothing bank, and ESL for the elderly.
Second Baptist Church of Asbury Park: Building Their Community into God’s Desired Image
Adedayo Adebayo, a 2020 Sacred Sector Fellow, served at the Second Baptist Church of Asbury Park (SBCAP), a predominantly Black church that was incorporated in 1891. It is a church committed to Christian growth, and they do this through practical, engaging, experiential, and creative teaching of the scriptures. SBCAP has a wide range of ministries through which they carry out their God-given purpose. They are an intentional, intergenerational, impactful, and inspirational community.
SBCAP is built on four pillars of purpose – Worship, Discipleship, Benevolence, and Outreach – and through the four pillars, they continue to strive to make their community into God’s desired image.
Chapel Pointe: Desiring to Make a Radical Impact for the Kingdom
Chapel Pointe is a growing church in Hudsonville, MI that pursues a mission to multiply transformed followers of Jesus. To that end, the church strives to intentionally reach, serve, and disciple its community. It also holds strategic partnerships with other ministry leaders, with a desire to see the church make a radical impact for the Kingdom in its community and beyond. In this article, Max Spoelstra introduces his host site, Chapel Pointe, through the Three P’s framework of organizational policy, public positioning, and public policy.
First Baptist Church Pharr: Actively Serving the Community in Love
The Council of Churches Greater Bridgeport: Creating a More Just, Healthy, and Vibrant Society
Creating and maintaining a just and equal society in the city of Bridgeport, CT is the main purpose of the Council of Churches in Greater Bridgeport. Omar Nicholson, a 2020 Sacred Sector Fellow who is serving with the Council this summer, reflects on his initial interaction with the Council and its sacred mission. The Council engages this mission through several outreach efforts, including working to address food insecurity, criminal justice, educational reform and the Becoming Anti-racist summer study series. Omar shares plans to assess the organizational and public policy culture at the Council and also to provide supportive consultation to the Racial Ally initiative.
Prison Fellowship: Dedicated to Justice that Restores
Yasmine Arrington, ScholarCHIPS, Inc. Founder and Executive Director and 2020 Sacred Sector Fellow, analyzes Prison Fellowship’s mission and activities in respect to the Three P’s framework. She elaborates on how Prison Fellowship’s approach to ministry and advocacy for all those impacted by crime and incarceration makes prisons sacred and rehabilitative, advances criminal justice reforms, and supports prisoners, their families, and their communities.
Of Dice and Clergymen - Casinos, Congregations, and COVID-19
On Friday, July 25th, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5 to 4 decision, denied an application for injunctive relief submitted by a Christian congregation, Calvary Chapel Dayton Valley, in Nevada. In denying this church’s request, the Court refused to assess a troubling fact scenario wherein worship services are capped by the state at 50 people, yet casinos, bars and other like businesses are able to operate at 50% capacity. The church has requested that congregational communities be treated on an equal basis with casinos, being allowed to operate at 50% of their capacity while implementing appropriate social distancing and other public health measures. The five Justices who denied the church’s request- Chief Justice Roberts joined the Court’s four liberals- did not give any explanation or analysis. Not giving a reason is not uncommon in emergency requests such as this, and yet the disparate treatment cries out for explanation. Justice Alito, joined by Justices Thomas and Kavanaugh, wrote a 24 page dissent stating that they believed injunctive relief should have been granted to Calvary Chapel while the Court weighed in on the case’s merits.
IRFA Leaders Facilitate Webinar for Wesleyan Church About Impact of Recent Supreme Court Decisions on Church Life
On Thursday, July 23, Stanley Carlson-Thies, founder and senior director of the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance, and Chelsea Langston Bombino, director of Sacred Sector, both initiatives of the Center for Public Justice, facilitated a webinar for the Wesleyan Church regarding how recent Supreme Court decisions impact these congregations in terms of their understanding of the legal and public policy implications, their own organizational practices, and their public witness. This webinar covered two major Supreme Court cases this term: Bostock v. Clayton County and Our Lady of Guadalupe School, which both had implications for how faith-based organizations engage in religious staffing. This webinar discussed best practices for engaging in mission-based human resources, as well as for how faith-based employers can advance civic pluralism.
Lexington Rescue Mission: Offering the Hope of the Gospel to the Community
Chloe Specht, a Sacred Sector Fellow, wrote a summary of Lexington Rescue Mission’s (LRM) history and description of their work in the greater Lexington, KY community. The article features a description of major ongoing projects and programs and why they are valuable to LRM’s clientele. Chloe plans to help LRM prepare for their new women’s transitional housing program.
National Evangelical Association: Living Out Their Sacred Mission to Honor God
Prudent leaders of faith-based nonprofits in the U.S. often seek out best organizational assessment practices in order to administer constructive changes that will position their organization to more fully live out its sacred mission. Sacred Sector Fellow Rev. Girien R. Salazar provides an introduction to the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), a Christian ecumenical organization comprised of 40 major denominations, and provides a preliminary application of Sacred Sector’s Three P’s Framework of organizational assessment: Public Policy, Organizational Practices, and Public Engagement. Salazar discusses what he hopes to learn throughout the fellowship and how he plans to contribute to the organizational goals of his host-site.
Redemption Housing: Bringing Restoration and Healing to Returning Citizens
This article will highlight Redemption Housing, a faith-based organization that is designed to help men assimilate back into society through intentional relationships and access to social services in a dignified environment. Unlike typical nonprofit half-way houses, it’s a faith-based organization that has real solutions to housing and employment for citizens. Redemption Housing believes spiritual practices that engage and encourage corporate worship in a covenant faith community supply social support and accountability for formerly incarcerated persons so they do not re-enter the prison pipeline. Rev. Dianne Faust of the historic Grace Baptist Church of Germantown and a Sacred Sector Fellow has been instrumental in helping the organization put in place policies and practices that bring about physical, emotional, and spiritual healing in returning citizens. She has also helped Redemption Housing to expand its housing capacity by forming partnerships in the community with other churches.
On Ramps Covenant Church: Embodying a Theology of Place
How many times have we left the church in order to get to church? This is the question that started On Ramps Covenant Church in Fresno, CA. It is a multi-generational, multi-ethnic, interracial, multi-class, and multi-educational congregation with a strong theology of place. In this post, Michael Carline-Perez writes about his role as a Sacred Sector Fellow with this remarkable congregation.
CrossPurpose: Helping Image-Bearers Out of Poverty
In Denver, CO, over 350,000 people live at or below the poverty line. While homelessness persists in that city as it does in many urban areas of America, it is the working class poor in Denver who often feel the economic pinch the strongest. One nonprofit and faith-based organization, CrossPurpose, is committed to addressing the issue of financial insecurity through a six-month-long career and community development program. Hunter Hambrick, a 2020 Sacred Sector fellow, provides a brief overview of CrossPurpose’s history and mission, assesses how this organization lives out the Three P’s and details his role there this summer.
Equipping Churches for Their Role in Immigration and Asylum
Immigration laws and regulations are the focus of a lot of debate and emotion, and the impact on asylum-seekers of constantly shifting priorities and enforcement policies has been fear, pain and suffering for many who are simply seeking a safe harbor. Gretchen Saalbach, a 2020 Sacred Sector Fellow, has been working with the SoCal Presbyterian Immigrant Accompaniment Ministry as they seek to bring clarity to churches and individuals on the complexities of immigration among their congregations, and recruit them to help.
Making Sense Of The Supreme Court's Ruling For Religious Schools
How Expanded Unemployment Insurance and Work-Share Programs Can Sustain the Faith-Based Sector and its Workers During the Ongoing Pandemic
Both faith-based organizations and workers are being directly impacted by financial challenges related to the ongoing public health crisis. In this moment, we have heard anecdotally from many faith-based organizational leaders that they continue to have questions and challenges regarding how to navigate government support programs that could benefit them and their workers. Through recently enacted legislation and new guidance, the United States Congress and the U.S. Department of Labor have made changes to the unemployment insurance system that affect individuals across the country, including in the sacred sector. For congregations and faith-based nonprofits who face decisions about laying off employees who serve as frontline ambassadors for the organization’s work, these provisions that offer both enhanced unemployment options for workers and work-share options for employers can offer some hope that these invaluable individuals and their families will be sustained financially through this pandemic and beyond.
A Multi-faith Conversation: How Faith-Based Nonprofits are Serving During COVID-19 (Part 2)
For many Americans, communities of faith are the stabilizing force for good in times of crisis. But in this unusual crisis, the familiar practice of coming together for support has been made nearly impossible. As such, faith-based organizations and congregations that are often closest to those in need – like under-resourced individuals and families, especially in communities of color – are themselves struggling to survive, let alone serve the community.
In a special event hosted by Independent Sector, a national membership organization that works to strengthen civil society, participants in CPJ’s Sacred Sector initiative shared urgent frontline stories from their work, representing a range of diverse faith-based institutions, and consider the connection between service and citizenship for advancing justice for their communities in the context of COVID-19.
Presenters included Sacred Sector Community participant Pastor Harold Dugger of First Baptist Church of Capitol Heights, Sacred Sector Fellow Dr. Denise Strothers of Healing Communities, Islam and Religious Freedom Action Team Director Ismail Royer with the Religious Freedom Institute, and Sacred Sector Director Chelsea Langston Bombino, who served as moderator for the conversation.
Part 2: Hispanic Congregations - Religious Freedom to Embody La Familia in Civic Engagement
In this second article of a two-part series, Dr. Gus Reyes shares how Hispanic congregations and ministries can draw on their faith-based values to shape their actions toward a hopeful civic engagement. In this article, Dr. Reyes takes up this theological notion of la familia as a unifying theme in the common faith walks of Hispanic congregations, and apply the idea of family to how our Hispanic faith communities are living into their spiritual commitments around civic engagement during the dual challenges of a global pandemic and heightening tensions around the pursuit of racial justice. Dr. Reyes states that it can be challenging for Hispanic congregations to engage civically: “Hispanic faith leaders see they have a role to play in shepherding their co-religionists’ understanding of the importance of speaking and acting thoughtfully in the public square. And yet, it is not easy to show Hispanic Christians one definitive way to carry out the Lamb’s image in this nuanced moment. For some, civic engagement may look like finding one or two issues at the local government level that they can meaningfully engage in with a public official. For others, it may mean encouraging voter registration, exploring serving as a volunteer commissioner at the municipal or county level, or simply starting with praying for our public leaders.”
Meet the 2020 Sacred Sector Fellows: Dianne, Girien and Max
This is the final in a four-part series featuring the 2020 cohort of Sacred Sector Fellowship, which equips current and recently graduated seminarians for service within the faith-based nonprofit sector. Meet Dianne, Girien and Max -- three seminarians who are pursuing their faith-based vocation with the Sacred Sector Fellowship this summer.