Connecting our Conversations
Connecting our Conversations is hosted by the Presbytery of Southern New England, a regional governing body in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). This is our space for conversations that push the edges of our faith and help us deepen discipleship.
Connecting our Conversations
Matthew 25 Series: Pillar #3 - Eradicating Systemic Poverty
In the fourth episode of the Matthew 25 series, Rev. Dr. Shannan Vance-Ocampo is joined by the PC(USA)'s Rev. Rebecca Barnes, Coordinator of the Presbyterian Hunger Program, and Rev. Dr. Alzono Johnson, Coordinator of the The Presbyterian Committee on the Self-Development of People, for a discussion on one of the main pillars of the Matthew 25 church—Eradicating Systemic Poverty - and the pressing need for communities of faith to drive transformative change.
Together, they explore:
- Preexisting beliefs that alienate and invalidate others' struggles
- Intersectional approaches that drive sustainable change
- The spiritual foundations of community empowerment
- The pivotal role of churches in addressing poverty, including programs like Soul Fire Farm that are tackling hunger, homelessness, and educational barriers
Rev. Dr. Alonzo Johnson provides direction, coordination, strategic and theological vision to the Presbyterian Committee on the Self-Development of People ministry and its commitments to social, racial, and economic justice. He serves as the key liaison between the National Committee on Self-Development of People and the Presbyterian Mission Agency, and he promotes and interprets the ministry of SDOP to congregations, middle governing bodies, and ecumenical & community partners.
Rev. Rebecca Barnes became the Coordinator of the Presbyterian Hunger Program after serving for 5 years as the Associate for Environmental Ministries (within the PHP). Rebecca is a graduate of Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary where she earned a Masters of Divinity and a Masters of Art in Religion in 2011, with a thesis titled: “A Fuller Experience of God’s Grace: How the Sacraments Invite Us to Relationship with, and Care for, the Earth.” While in seminary, she authored “50 Ways to Help Save the Earth: How You and Your Church Can Help Make a Difference,” which was reprinted for distribution to the Commissioners of the 2016 General Assembly of the PC(USA). She also previously served as a young adult intern for PC(USA)’s Health Ministries office and then in the PC(USA) Environmental Ministry program, then staffed Presbyterians for Earth Care and served as the Hunger Action Advocate at San Francisco Theological Seminary.
Connecting our Conversations is hosted by the Presbytery of Southern New England, a regional governing body in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). This is our space for conversations that push the edges of our faith and help us deepen discipleship.Connecting our Conversations is hosted by the Presbytery of Southern New England, a regional governing body in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). This is our space for conversations that push the edges of our faith and help us deepen discipleship.
Well, hello everyone. This is Shannon Van Socampo I use she and her pronouns and I serve as the general presbyter for the Presbytery of Southern New England, and this is Connecting Our Conversations, our podcast space for conversations that push the edges of our faith and help us to deepen discipleship. The Presbytery of Southern New England is a regional governing body in the Presbyterian Church, usa. During the months of January and February of 2025, we are doing a special eight-part podcast series on being a Matthew 25 Presbytery. You are hearing this podcast while I am away on sabbatical. I wanted to leave something behind that would be a ministry resource for the whole Presbytery. We are a Matthew 25 Presbytery and so this work is at the heart of our ministry. In addition to this podcast, our Presbytery meetings and gatherings in 2025. We'll also focus around various Matthew 25 themes and offer resources as well.
Speaker 1:This eight-part podcast series during these two months of January and February will explore all areas of Matthew 25 ministry, including two special episodes one on the history and the theological why of being a Matthew 25 church and a second special episode on what intersectionality is and why it is at the heart of this ministry. On today's episode, we will be talking about the Matthew 25 focus on eradicating systemic poverty and what that means for us as people of faith. We'll be talking to the Reverend Alonzo Johnson, who directs our Self-Development of People Initiative, and the Reverend Rebecca Barnes, who directs the Presbyterian Hunger Program. So I want to welcome Alonzo and Rebecca to this program two longtime colleagues of mine and friends. It's so great to have you here.
Speaker 2:Great to be with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm so glad to have you. So let's start with introductions. I want to give each of you a chance to just introduce yourself in whatever way makes best sense for you, to say a little bit about who you are and who you are in ministry. So, rebecca, we'll start with you.
Speaker 2:Thanks, shannon. I'm Rebecca Barnes, I use she and her pronouns. I coordinate the Presbyterian Hunger Program and live in Louisville, kentucky, so I think I'll leave it at that for now, as we dig deeper into the issues.
Speaker 1:Yeah, great, and Alonzo tell us about you.
Speaker 3:Thank you, shannon. I'm Reverend Dr Alonzo Johnson. I coordinate the self-development of people ministries for the Presbyterian Church. I am located in Atlanta now, so I am working remotely from Atlanta and excited to be able to be here and also excited to be able to engage these issues that are really important for the church.
Speaker 1:So did I just give you both like a pay raise via this podcast? I called you both directors when we got started, so maybe somebody in Louisville is listening to what I say or something.
Speaker 2:Probably not.
Speaker 1:So we'll start with more introductory material. So tell us about the ministry area focus you work on, what your role is in that and sort of what. The portfolio of work in ministry, what happens in self-development of people, what happens in the hunger program. So we'll let you get us started on this one, alonzo.
Speaker 3:Certainly, thank you. So what I do is I am coordinator, which provides direction and coordination and a kind of reform, theological vision to the self-development of people ministry. I'm a key liaison between our national committee, who are a group of folks it's a board but it's more of a committee, a quality committee, and they're more engaged and we can talk a little bit about their function later on and the Press to Admission Agency. I work for the Compassion, peace and Justice area of the Press to Admission Agency and a lot of my work is really engaging ecumenical partners, engaging our communities, engaging, more importantly, mid councils, mid governing bodies and implementing the strategic vision and direction for the South development people in partnership with our national committee.
Speaker 3:A lot of this is really just, very simply, is interpreting and engaging the work and getting Presbyterians engaged in the work of anti-poverty and social justice and especially with a thrust of scripture. And so, of course, the Self-Development People ministry has been. We've been around since 1970. We came out of a really incredibly turbulent time and a response to a very turbulent issue of communities of color being disenfranchised from economic access. And, of course, 50 some odd years later, we are still here doing this work, but improving on the ways that we are able to work with partners, and so that's, in a nutshell, what I do.
Speaker 1:Great and Rebecca tell us about the Hunger Program.
Speaker 2:Similar to Alonzo, I play the role of coordinator, which helps synergize and synthesize all the various facets of the work, all the various facets of the work and our program. The Presbyterian Hunger Program, has a similar history to self-development of people of having been around for generations in the church, of helping to live our faith out into the world. So the mission of the Presbyterian Hunger Program is to alleviate hunger and to eliminate root causes of hunger. So of course that's pretty multifaceted when you think about why are people hungry. So that'll include work on climate change impacts, racial and gender justice, poverty. So we work closely with self-development of people and sibling programs on peacemaking or disaster, but those similar things like SDOP, of lack of access to fair wages, decent transportation, lack of access to education, training opportunities, working to build capacity in leaders and communities both in the US and around the world. So we're grateful to get to work on the intersectional justice issues that connect our programs and connect Christians to living out our faith in the world as we feel called.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and let's talk a little bit more deeply about how the two programs work around this question of eradicating systemic poverty. You know for that to be the title, the tagline, for one of the three main pillars of Matthew 25 ministry. You know the words eradicate and systemic around the word poverty. You know. So how does that? You know what do those words mean to you? What does that mean to you? And you think about Matthew 25, you know how do we go after things that seem so big to so many people when we talk about eradicating and systems. Either one of you? That's a big question, right.
Speaker 2:I'll jump in and then we can talk more, talk more. But I think what sprang to my mind is we also work a fair amount with various colleagues, like Reverend Dr Liz C O'Harris of the Cairo Center and Poor People's Campaign, and this conviction that it isn't enough to just ameliorate individual people's situations. We know that it is important that people get fed. Today we don't want to pretend, like direct food service, for instance, isn't really important, but that is not going to change the systems and structures that we know are keeping people poor and hungry and oppressed, and so I think it is a radical vision, which is what we're called to have as Christians, to really think about eradicating.
Speaker 2:So I was thinking of Reverend Dr Liz Theoharis because of the book Always With you, where she flips the notion that the poor are always with you, that Jesus is quoted as saying is like somehow we've just come to accept that that's the way it is, but that's not actually what that scripture meant. That is not what we're called to believe. We do believe that we could tackle these systems and if we tackle the systems and structures and stand together as people together, that we could end poverty, end hunger, so that there is a way forward. There's the need for the way forward and we do have some ability to begin the work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I love her ideas around. You know, we just we've been so culturally conditioned to think that poverty is just this fait accompli, right, it's just, it's never going to change and it's even just a secular myth it's not even just a religious myth Like's such a secular myth as well. And beyond direct service, there's really not much we can do. And also this idea that we have to do things in this individual frame individual church has to have an individual food pantry or, you know, do individual things to. You know, work on something specific in their community rather than linking arms with others, which is some of the work of the Poor People's Campaign. Right is building interfaith bridges and ecumenical bridges and, you know, pulling groups together, which is why it's exciting to see the PCUSA as one of those initial partners with that ministry and work right.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I think that's a huge myth that's out there, that we have these individual ways of dealing with poverty and that it can never be dealt with because of that, and that's some of how it keeps itself alive and how power keeps it alive, I think. So I appreciate that important insight at the beginning of the conversation, alonzo, from your area of portfolio, I know so much of what both of you do is completely tied up with each other in ministry. But words around eradicate and systems what do those words mean to you? Around Matthew 25 in your ministry?
Speaker 3:It's really powerful to talk about kind of eradication. Sometimes we have used words like alleviate, which doesn't help. Right, you want to alleviate, you want to get rid of poverty. But also, I mean, I think, akin to just what Rebecca mentions in lifting up Liz Thiel Harris's book, we talk about the reality of what does that mean to have the goal of eradicating poverty? And that means doing this in a way that is not.
Speaker 3:I think one thing we've done for a long time in the church is we've done this in a way that's paternalistic and also neocolonial. And I think one of the ideas of eradicating is actually working with communities and that's establishing relationships with economically poor communities. Right, and this is the idea of empowerment. Right, self-development of people was created because it recognizes that we, as Presbyterians, we don't have all the answers right, and it recognizes that those who live in the context of poverty, those who feel the sting, those who, as Thurman says, those whose backs are against the wall, this is what eradication of systems means. It means working with people, it means walking with people, it means partnering with people, and this is important because we recognize that poverty is not just, it's not about pity and it's not just about individualistic choices, just as you know, as Rebecca mentioned, but this is about systems that coalesce. This is about systems that in many ways, are closed. This is about systems that prevent people from having access. I think for Presbyterians, I would even venture to say that, theologically, for us you know our sacraments, especially communion, is so key to helping us understand why we should do the work Jesus has called us to do to go out and bring good news to the poor. We have a God that feeds and provides us at this table, and if this particular piece that we hold so dear can become, if we can put this in the forefront of our work, then we can start to see that this is about welcoming people to the table so that we can all be nourished for the fight, nourished for the fight of freedom.
Speaker 3:And I think the idea of when we talk about eradication, we talk about access right. How do we break down some of the systemic components that prevent people from having access to things? Just really quickly, one of the things I've noticed is that, as things become more computerized, it makes it makes it hard to have access to talk to people, to be able to plead your case. You have cities that have bus lines that don't get to the right parts of town for employment. These are the kinds of things access.
Speaker 3:So this is the systemic pieces that we need to be in conversation about, and I think it's important to say that when we say systemic poverty, it's not some abstraction, right, but this is actually real. These are actually components that are coming together and the systems of itself are intersectional. You know, it's prison and education and the connection, all these kinds of things. So when I think about those things, I think about the larger systems that we need to dismantle and in order to do that, we need to learn more about them and be to do that, we need to learn more about them and be in conversation about how we can address them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I noticed that that last piece right is so hard for us oftentimes as Presbyterians, because we really, if we're being honest, we're really an upper class church, right, we're a little bit of a middle class church, but we're mostly a middle to upper class denomination, and so a lot of our folks don't even know how to be in conversation with someone who's in a different social class, right, and how to understand what's happening and what the barriers are for someone that's in a very different place. It's like a whole foreign language, right. And so part of the work of, for me, of eradicating systemic poverty, means we have to get pretty far out of our own comfort zone and build relationships and communities that we never knew were there and figure out who's really near us and who's really around us. And oftentimes it's the people that work for us. They work for us, but they're invisible to us. We don't see their lives, we don't see what's going on with them, and that the reality is so very different.
Speaker 1:And I was listening to another podcast earlier this fall with the Wetland Cook program at Vanderbilt in religion and justice, and they had a Brazilian theologian on and she was saying I have to make sure that whatever I write theologically is something people in the favelas where I grew up in Rio can read and understand and make sense to them, and some of them, she said, can't even read the people that raised me. So it has to be put together my work, my theology, in a way that is completely accessible. So it becomes a question almost of theological accessibility and also of how accessible is God to us, how accessible are we making ourselves to the work of the Spirit? Right, right, I, she, she talked about how she had to go back and she wrote one dissertation for herself for her theological work. But then she had to go back and redo it over in a whole different way because she wanted her mother to be able to know what she had been doing.
Speaker 1:Her ecclesiastical organization she was working for here in the United States wanted out of her was something her mother would never be able to access and that just was unacceptable for her. You know our terms. What's the level of access? Who are we? I know that's something SDOP gets out a lot in the grant making work that you will do, the the partner who I'll try to make in communities. I wonder, alonzo, if you want to talk a little bit about some of that. What, what it looks like on the ground, some of these SDOP connections.
Speaker 3:Sure, I think the one really powerful thing about SDOP is that in in creation of the program, I think there was a thought given to what is self-development and, of course, I'm going to pause us Understanding that if people are going to be confines of all these particular types of things and self-development, people understand, reverend Dr Gabriel Wilmore, you know Black Presbyterian who have been instrumental in a whole bunch of different types of freedom causes, but this idea that people act for themselves.
Speaker 1:So our grant process is so, for those listening, we're just splicing some audio together because, uh, we lost, uh, alonzo for a brief moment there, because something happened with the internet that we'll never know what happened, which I think we all have experienced in our lives. So we'll kind of go back to where we were. So, alonzo, we were asking you about, or I was asking you about, you know, this question of systemic poverty and the work of the self-development of people and how we get at that, those systemic areas through the way that you all do grants and the way you all connect to particular ministries. And you were starting to talk a little bit about Raymond Gaylord and some of his work. So that's about where we were, if we can kind of go back in time about 10 minutes ago. So I'll let you pick up where you were.
Speaker 3:Oh, no sure That'd be great. And I mentioned Reverend Dr Gibral Willmore as a kind of a brainchild for the self-development of people, recognizing that if we're going to address the issues of oppression and injustice, especially as they appear as economic, this is going to have to be something that's done within communities. So, self-development of people, the idea really came out of people acting for themselves. It was kind of a third way. Right, we had protests and then we had Arlinski and planning and these kinds of things. But then there's also this other way how do communities themselves be in control of their own projects? I mean, because communities have been fighting and they bear witness to their own struggles and they also witnessed the injustices that they have suffered.
Speaker 3:So this idea of self-development of people, our grants were designed for communities who only control their own projects, and so it moves away from two things One, paternalism, right, feeling like we need to tell people what they need. The other piece it moves away from is neocolonialism or colonialism, this idea that we get to determine what is right for people. And I think one of the things about self-development of people is that our grant system has been set up to lift up those you know to say hey, you communities who are in charge of your projects, you are the ones who are directly affected. We want to hear from you and we want to walk with you and we want to learn from you and we want to be able to take part in addressing oppression and injustice together, and especially as we look at the kind of intersections of what we call systemic poverty, right, there are so many aspects of being able of not having access, so many access, so many aspects of oppression, the.
Speaker 3:You know how these particular systems work together and are combined right. The lack of transportation somewhere, you know, combined with. You know the lack of unionizing, say at an employment place, you know, where people get fired because they can't get there on time because of the buses, right? So communities know how to navigate these issues. They live with these issues, and so that self-development is about communities moving forward and addressing those issues, and so that self-development is about communities moving forward and addressing those issues. And we have so many communities that are doing incredible work the church can learn a lot about this, and especially being engaged in the fight.
Speaker 3:So our grants are really designed to complement and partner with organizations who are doing these amazing things right. It's not this presupposition that we are going to help them do something. It is understanding that our communities know what to do, they know how to address the struggles, they know how to lick oppression, and some of them just may need a little more funding or more resources to do so or, in our case, partnerships.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that idea of putting in inputs into communities, but inputs that aren't paternalistic right, there are these partnership inputs and the community is at the decision point about what they need. We're not here to say we're going to give you this money, but we think you should change points three, four and five on your strategic plan, right? It's just, it's the money. And you know, one of the things I think of when I think of colonialism is extraction. Right, colonialism is all about extracting from places all sorts of things.
Speaker 3:Yeah, People resources.
Speaker 1:you know, extracting from the earth, extracting from communities, extracting from people's lives and this is not about extracting anything. It's all about input, but input that's also really dignified input and input that's driven by the people that are looking for it. So we're not even trying to do any extraction on their spirit or their soul. We're trying to really affirm the gifts that God has given them and the intelligence God has given them of what they know they need.
Speaker 3:Right, listen right. The first act of love is listening right, listening to communities too, and that's something that you know you mentioned earlier, shannon. You know, sometimes our churches, we become a little more elitist than we need to be, and when that happens, we're not listening Right, and that's the key. You know how do we listen, and listen with not, you know, listen in a more conceptual way too, by making space, and I think that, and I do think that there are churches that are doing a lot of that, you know, and what do we have to learn from them? But also, importantly, you know, in listening, what do we learn from our communities, who are most impacted by these things? So, yes, you're absolutely right in that way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, thank you, rebecca. Talk to us a little bit about your grants and how you all are doing inputs and interventions in the hunger program as well.
Speaker 2:Sure, I want to say that that listening to communities and really believing that they are the architects of the future. We need that. So hunger program and self-development of people to together have lots of the same principles, core values. We work together a lot and do things fairly similarly, even with different foci, and I think part of it is understanding that systemic poverty is resting on systems that are human built. It's our mistaken or misguided or evil past philosophies, beliefs and policies that have built this system. So it's something to grieve and lament and confess. It's also something to celebrate that these systems aren't eternal. Systems aren't eternal and so we can dismantle them because it was people who built them. So these communities that we get to walk alongside, the people that we listen to and the grant recipients of these programs are the ones who are casting another vision and building different systems that could create a world where poverty is eradicated and where people have all that they need, both domestic and internationally, working on advocacy campaigns to change policies that are keeping these systems in place. We're working on some development projects to build livelihoods and capacity and leaders, but also to work on food.
Speaker 2:Sovereignty is one area that the Hunger Program has focused in on food justice and food sovereignty, where we're asking the question of not just where do people have access to food, but do they have access to land, to seeds, to subsidies, to policy support, to be family farmers or new farmers? So our grants kind of cover the whole waterfront of communities that are addressing various root causes of hunger and that will include working on climate change issues and advocacy, because a lot of folks are finding that agriculture is harder and harder from droughts and floods and hurricanes and the whole gamut of climate caused disasters is making hunger worse and war and violent conflict is making hunger worse and so our grants will go towards some of those root causes and intersectional justice issues. So Presbyterians a long time ago decided you know our churches are really good places in local communities to do that direct food relief. So churches are great at backpack programs and food pantries and those things are needed to feed people today at backpack programs and food pantries and those things are needed to feed people today.
Speaker 2:But there tend to be some local money, community foundation or regional support for those things and when we want to talk about ending systemic poverty and structural issues that cause hunger, the hunger program was really created to use the generosity of Presbyterians to get at those root causes and do advocacy and campaign issues. So usually now hunger program does a little over a million dollars spread out between 20 to 25 different countries, including the US, and that's usually about a hundred grantee partners all kind of doing different things, including the US, and that's usually about 100 grantee partners all kind of doing different things. Community solutions the main areas that we've identified that our grants could sort of be framed or grouped in are providing more and better food, of course, but also solidarity campaigns with people and communities, so that advocacy walking alongside solidarity and a livable environment, so creating access to healthy, clean, safe spaces as well.
Speaker 1:Right, Right. Yeah, You're reminding me of one of my favorite projects, which is just down the road from me, which is Soul Fire Farm. Right, space and farmland for communities of color and weaving in Afro-Indigenous practices, rehabilitating and healing the land while feeding people and also scaling up and growing next generations of farmers. I mean they're really doing it on all the different angles, but then also teaching in the local community and doing direct service as well, teaching local people here in the cities of Troy and Albany how to have their own small backyard garden as well and do some of their own feeding of themselves. They really are trying to go after all the different angles related to the food system and justice. It's really become and blossomed into such an incredible piece of work what they're doing.
Speaker 2:One of the things that Soul Fire Farm has taught me is, while tree planting is really important and great, there's also lots of other ways to capture carbon emissions, and one of them is through agricultural practices. They have what they call silvopasture, and they're one of the tree grants this year, and last year is for some other agricultural processes that are known to capture carbon. So again, it's that intersectional work where they're tackling racial justice and generational poverty and land access, but also, meanwhile, fighting climate change and working to build this beautiful future we all want.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and also so many of us that get the chance to be near them and do a little bit of volunteer work where it's appropriate.
Speaker 1:Like I recognize, I'm a white person and so most of the land that they're working on and most of the community they're creating is not for me and I'm only there when I'm invited right, and that's okay too. And being okay with that, you know, being okay with it's not all about me, it's not all about when I want to show up or um, but the times I have been able to be there and the times I have been able to integrate. When the community says what they need, um, and community says what they want to do, um can be very powerful as well. Um, but it's not at my direction, it's not even at whatever I'm interested in, um. I have to wait and be invited and be able to come in that area of partnership and that's, I think, an important ministry lesson for all of us.
Speaker 1:So it's been a huge gain over the last 11 years being just down the road from them and being able to watch but also learn and grow on my own as well. It's been. It's a really interesting project. So we'll put that in the show notes. It's always one of the things I love to talk about.
Speaker 3:I do want to speak about that too, because I think Leah Penniman in the book Farming While Black I think you make some really good, shannon. It's good, it's so good to point out the racism of food systems, but also you know how it connects to employment and these kinds of things. One of the things I love about Soul Fire Farm is that they do acknowledge that for a long time that black people were, you know, had large agricultural practices that were taken away from by the government. That were taken away from by the government, yes, basically, and they acknowledge the and this is the systemic piece that I think Leah Penniman and folks at Soul Fire Farm get to. When you talk about race and these kinds of things land being taken away from people, right, land being, you know, land and practices it makes me think a lot about some of the work in eco-womanism, right, this idea that we understand that there are some connections with eco-womanism, right, this idea that we understand that there are some connections with eco-memory, right. And I think Soul Fire Farm gets at this idea of you know the fact that Black people were tending the land. Black people did own land and this was subsistence right, and so when I think about that.
Speaker 3:I think about there is several SDOP-funded programs that actually do these kinds of things too, that they acknowledge that this that this practice has is multidisciplinary. And when I say that means it's acknowledgement of the land, it's addressing food systems, but it's also it's creating a labor possibilities. It's creating possibilities for to have a skill. You know there's something called Strength to Love in Baltimore, which is a community garden. It's designed and created by formerly incarcerated folks and the idea is, you know, as we talk about these systems that close people out, right, we have laws in this country that basically says if you've been incarcerated, you can't work here or there, you don't have access to work here or there.
Speaker 3:And what these folks found? Two things. One, this kind of eco-memory. Right, they found this place where they can actually do the work of subsistence, they can embrace this idea of discipline and life creation, at the same time learning transferable skills that will allow them to be able to live lives of self-determination. So I think Soul Fire Farm is such a good example of the kinds of things and innovative things that have been different and how we understand projects. And Soul Fire Farm is a good of the the innovation and ingenuity of folks to say that here's another way, right, and so thank you for lifting them up. And uh, and because I see in in both the hunger program and sdop, we see, so we have so many programs that are very similar rather than doing the similar kind of work. Yeah, it's.
Speaker 1:It's really helpful and it's also a space where the Holy Spirit shows up, you know, where we God does something new and unexpected in our lives and in the lives of other people, and we don't even know the journey we're about to be taken on. And the Spirit is alive and it's an opportunity for us to tap into places that we maybe haven't paid attention to God's activity in the world or in our lives, or in the future, or in the past or the present, and I think that those things really do come up and come out of those places. And so these are also places for aliveness of the spirit and people have an opportunity for that ongoing work of discipleship building, personal and corporate, that we all are in need of these days, Very much so. I'm so appreciative of this conversation. I want to close up with a question.
Speaker 1:I stole this from another podcast I like to listen to. The podcast is called Outrage and Optimism and they ask their guests as they close up tell me something that outrages you and tell you something that makes you optimistic and sort of I think the frustrating way of asking that is like so where's total depravity still messing us up or frustrating you, and what's happening with the Holy Spirit. Like. You know what's God beckoning us towards, and so I'm curious if each of you would be up for sharing with us. You know, however, you want to use those frames as we close up in your ministry and in your work. Whoever wants to go is fine by me.
Speaker 2:I think it's easy to feel outraged at all of the things happening on all of the fronts that seem so horrific right now, from reading news about global wars and conflicts to reading domestic news, still about police violence and incarceration, to just ongoing suffering and I forgot to mention earlier but just the radical lack of enough affordable housing. So seeing folks who are homeless or without housing security in some form or fashion, I think it can make me really outraged, because I think the church is called to provide home for people, spiritual as well as physical. But then I do think the Holy Spirit is moving. So one thing I forgot to mention earlier is the beautiful sign of Presbyterians and other people of faith joining together in congregation based community organizing, cbcos. So that's something I've gotten to learn about through the Hunger Program and other colleagues, and I think the Holy Spirit is moving in those places.
Speaker 2:It's long hard work, it's campaign work, it's policy, it's local work, but it's a real testament because people are making these small wins upon which they can build each year, and I think that's what it's about, whether these community groups like Soul Fire Farm or CBCOs or what churches are doing all over. But it may just be this one thing that this one group can do in this one place, but we're all doing it together. So when you really start to step back and look at all these grantee partners, all these programs, all these churches, all of this good, good work, that's the Holy Spirit for me. Thank you.
Speaker 3:Amen to that, rebecca, I think. For me, I'm outraged about the perceived invisibility of the poor right, this idea that and we use mythological language to call them working class right Aspiring to be something and not and when this happens, we ignore, we mask the struggle, right, we don't look at the complex movements of systems that we just talked about, right, or we consign poverty to personal failings. And this is what really makes me angry is that when there's an invisibility about the poor of the poor, either they don't exist or they exist because it's their own fault and the mythology that's built around it. They just can't get it right. And what that does is that just alienates. It alienates humans who are struggling, alienates children who are not even food, right, it alienates folks who are living in the struggle, whether it be homelessness or whether it be mass incarceration or whether it be joblessness or whether it be. And things that we haven't talked about today is how mental health and access to health care affect people. So this perceived invisibility of the poor also invalidates their struggle, right, it invalidates the struggle that people have. What is it 140 million people in our country that we invalidate their struggle, right, I think.
Speaker 3:But what I'm optimistic and where I see the Holy Spirit is really in the gift of the church. Right, I see, I see it in Presbyterian ministries and churches who are engaging this struggle. Right, I think about you know, I mean just a few, just just in thinking about churches who are doing this. I think about Berea and Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, who has this incredible food program and, yeah, you know it's a mercy program, but it also recognizes the great hunger in this community and basically have decided that we are going to address hunger but we're also going to be a friend to the people who are poor and we're going to acknowledge their presence in this community. I think about First Presbyterian Church here in Atlanta. Some years ago I talked to Reverend Tony Sundermeyer and they have a program which addresses issues of homelessness and one of the innovative things that I liked about it was that homeless folks can use the church as an address so that they can get mail, they can get the kind of they can be human right.
Speaker 3:Well, I think about, you know, one of the churches, one or two churches in Louisville as where you know where our headquarters exists, and I think about Beachmont Presbyterian Church, who's doing amazing work through something called La Esquilita, the little school where they recognize that you know, undocumented students and students who are, you know, who have language barriers, can come and learn and be able to master some of the technologies needed to do schoolwork. Or Central Presbyterian Church in Louisville, who's also doing another food program and acknowledging the fact that we need to engage with our neighbors. I think these are really important things, and so I'm inspired, I think, about the Holy Spirit moving in these churches. And here's the thing this is not new to us. This is Jesus telling us to take this ministry out into the poor. We have policy statements that Presbyterians before us have worked on for many years, addressing situations of the poor and how we need to engage, at least, and how we need to engage the powers, to use Walter Wink's language Right. And then, just as you know, just as Rebecca mentioned, we have an Office of Public Witness for advocacy. So for anybody in the Presbyterian Church to say, hey, we don't have the avenues and the vehicles to do this, they're all around us and this is what it's like we talk about. What does it mean to be Presbyterian?
Speaker 3:And one of the things that attracted me as a kid being Presbyterian. My mentor said to me, we're about education and justice, and those are the things that drew me so when I think about the work of SDOP, the work of unique communities, letting us know what it is we need to do. We have more than enough resource-wise, we have more than enough theologically, and we have more than enough in community to be able to address poverty. You know Rebecca's absolutely right we are the richest country in the world. We have more than enough, and so how do we make that work? How do we come together? How do we, as Peter Block says, how do we invite people into this work? What's going to be a form of invitation? As we invite people to the communion table, invite them to the baptismal font, how do we invite people into the things of God right, the fullness and the abundance of God? Which is language that's so, it's Holy Spirit language that's contra, the language of scarcity right.
Speaker 3:And so these are the kinds of things I think that make me excited is when I see churches engaging, questioning, innovating and recognizing that they have been blessed with so much, and too much is given. Much expected, right yeah?
Speaker 1:yeah, thank you, alonzo. You know you're reminding me. Also, we're recording this podcast in the first week or so of October and folks won't hear this until the new year, but we're recording it while we're in the midst of these terrible two weeks around Hurricane Helene and now Hurricane Milton that last night just sliced through Florida. And my parents live in Black Mountain, north Carolina, so of course they're in one of these hard hit communities and go to the Presbyterian Church there and they've been in this process. The Black Mountain Church, like lots of churches have been. You know, over the last couple of years or whenever in the life of their church, they've been doing some renovations on the building and those renovations have come in very, very in extremely helpful ways lately the upgrades they made to their Christian Ed wing, the upgrades to the sanctuary. Their space has become such a ministry output area to feed their community after this horrific natural disaster in the last 10 days. But they have this line on the front of their communion table and it's a question. It says has everyone been fed, has everyone been fed? And they were trying to figure out they were doing, I think, also very Presbyterian things a new building project, a strategic plan. You know very Presbyterian things and didn't know how God was going to necessarily use these things. You hate to have these things used, or God to show you what you were up to through something like this. But their pastor has written and preached on this. Her first sermon, back after the hurricane, said I didn't know what we were going to do with these words on the communion table. We were talking about doing something different. We didn't know. But look at what God has shown us. This question of has everyone been fed? And it's not just direct service right after the hurricane, making sure people who really have lost everything right at this moment get fed, that's a immediate thing. But have people been fed in mind, in heart, in spirit, in soul, are they being seen? Being fed is so many different things. It's not just that physical food. And also, are we going to be able to feed people as we go forward?
Speaker 1:And I was talking to my parents last night on the phone and my mom was telling me that there's a Methodist church in town that has been doing nothing since this hurricane. They're like just not, their doors aren't open, they've like just disappeared, like gone. And I said to my parents last night. I said you know what. They've made their choice they're going to die. That church is going to die.
Speaker 1:And people are going to notice in the community who is feeding people, which churches, which communities are showing up and it's not just the Presbyterians in that community. Lots of folks are showing up in lots of ways. People are going to notice who's showing up, who's there for them in a crisis, but also for the long haul, and that's where people's energy is going to go. And churches that make the choice not to show up and not to feed in any way, they're not going to make it, and that's a choice. But it's also a choice of where we align ourselves with the spirit and where God is taking us.
Speaker 1:And so we were just talking about this on the phone last night, about, you know, they're just noticing the choices of different faith communities after this natural disaster, and I said, yeah, they will. These choices will show themselves for years to come. This ministry, these ministries, will show themselves for years to come. This is what will happen, and you know they're in the early, first, hard days of all of this. But decisions are being made, and those decisions how we show up, how we address poverty when it's systemic and when it comes at you like a freight train like this, it gets seen in communities us really mad. They can make us really optimistic too about how God's people get activated and re-engaged in ministry. So I think there's just a lot going on in all of these pieces and weaving together.
Speaker 1:So I'm so grateful to both of you for the ministry that you do and the ways you show up in the life of ministry, for being co-laborers in the Presbyterian Church with all of us, and we're glad we get to share a little bit more about both of these ministries in our podcast.
Speaker 1:Come anytime and visit us in the Presbytery, and I know I didn't say it earlier, but Rachel White, who is the spouse of one of our pastors, kevin White, just joined Alonzo, your national committee, and so hopefully we can use that as a way to get your national committee to come have a meeting in our bounds. We'd love to host you all anytime and as well as the hunger program, you're always so welcome and I'm thinking about ways we continue to be be the church, so thank you for being with us. We'll put all the resources we talked about in the podcast notes that will go out with this podcast, and thank you both for what you do, being ambassadors of Matthew 25. I know both of you as longtime friends and colleagues and know that this is your heart's work. Discipleship, loving God, loving creation, is at the core of who both of you are. So thank you so much and thank you for being part of connecting our conversations.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having us. Thank you for having us.
Speaker 3:And thank you for being part of connecting our conversations. Thanks for having us. Thank you for having us. It's been an honor and a pleasure.
Speaker 1:Thank you.