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Teaming Up to Spotlight Homelessness
City Planning
Dozens of homeless men and women live in “Tent City,” an area of downtown Nashville near the Cumberland River. Recently Otter Creek Church of Christ and the Temple Congregation Ohabai Sholom, Nashville’s largest synagogue, worked together to raise money and awareness for this urban community.
With the blessing of its residents, Otter Creek member Jerry Atnip snapped photographs of Tent City’s people, makeshift homes, and meager possessions. The church organized an exhibit of the pictures, followed by a concert by renowned guitarist Phil Keaggy.
Tent City residents, Temple members, and two Temple rabbis also attended the benefit. Ohabai Sholom will host a similar display during the Feast of Tabernacles, when Jews remember the Israelites’ journey through the desert; they will invite Otter Creek members to attend a service during the Feast.
“Our people always hear me talk about Tent City,” said Doug Sanders, associate minister at Otter Creek, quoted in a Tennessean article about the event. “I wanted them to meet the people behind the pictures, and hear their stories. We want them to build relationships.”
Otter Creek’s involvement in Tent City has been noted in other publications; an August 11 article in The Wall Street Journal discussed the church’s work to build a shower for the area and Sanders’s efforts to help residents develop community rules.
http://www.ottercreek.org/
Rich Text
Believers have shared prayer requests for centuries—but only recently have they shared them via text message.
To wrap up a seven-week series on the Old Testament, leaders at Restore Community Church (Kansas City, Missouri) wanted to guide the congregation in praying about its major themes. In week six, Restore invited everyone to opt-in for a week of prayer reminders by texting the word “testament” to a specific number. Each person who signed up received one text message each day the following week.
“For instance, the first series theme was blessing, so the first day we sent a text message asking people to think about how God had blessed them and how they could bless others,” says Tommy Bowman, creative arts director. “The message invited them to reply with a short texted prayer. We did this each day and collected all the answers.”
On the following Sunday, week seven of the series, Bowman displayed more than 50 of the anonymous prayers during worship.
“I edited out the very personal ones and copied others into our presentation software,” he says. “The band played a song, and we asked everyone to silently pray these prayers along with the person who had sent the message.”
A Restore member created TextCaster, the software used to send the messages and organize the responses, and he was eager to help the church use it in some way.
“But we never use technology just to do it—it must further the mission of the service,” Bowman says. “This also succeeded because we introduced text messaging for a specific time and a specific reason. So we built trust with our church which enables us to use this technology again.”
More than 170 people signed up to participate, and even more found it an especially meaningful experience.
“People saw their own needs in the words of others, and commented on the privilege of praying for them,” says Bowman. “People connected to these prayers.”
www.restorecc.org
Jennifer Taylor, one of CHRISTIAN STANDARD's contributing editors, lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
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