the group home “I started asking, ‘Where is community? Why does our society let people drift to the margins?’ ” she said. “I grew more interested in getting to the root of issues rather than just responding.”
When Reed graduated from seminary in 2008, Redeemer called her to offer a fresh perspective on how to do God’s work more boldly. “They’ve taught me what radi- cal discipleship can look like in community,” said Reed, who served her internship at Redeemer. The congregation’s transformation has been a long time coming. Besides its sanctuary, Redeemer owns a second building rented to the Northeast Portland Tool Library, where residents can borrow a saw, rake or drill, and the Portland Fruit Tree Project, which registers fruit and nut trees and organizes people to distribute the produce. Redeemer also used to rent storefront space near the church, Enterbeing, to appeal to people who considered themselves spiritual rather than religious. It was one of the Leaven Project’s original sites, in addition to Redeemer’s sanctuary, pubs and people’s homes.
In the last 15 years, gentrification has taken Redeemer’s northeast Portland neighborhood from a blue-collar, at times gang-ridden community to one of upscale coffee shops and art galleries. Housing prices have skyrocketed. In 1987, Moe saw the growing disparity and got involved with seven other congregations through the Portland Orga- nizing Project. In 2002, Redeemer helped create the Metro- politan Alliance for the Common Good, an affiliate of the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), an organizing network Saul Alinsky founded in Chicago in 1940. Wendy Hall, 39, who began attending Enterbeing seven years ago, is now the project’s mission developer organizer. When the landlord raised Enterbeing’s rent in Septem- ber 2010, Hall and others agreed the storefront was no longer necessary. The move to Redeemer’s church building occurred after Leaven Project leaders held 200 one-on-one conversations with people parishioners knew were open to a new spiritual mission. “We asked, ‘What pressures do you and your loved ones face?’ and ‘What would a relevant spiritual community look like for you?’ ” Hall said. The Leaven Project launched May 23, 2010. That day the project began a community garden in Redeemer’s front yard. It has a feminist women’s Bible study, “Bras, Bibles and Brews,” and a “Man Summit,” which meet on different nights at a pub. Reed said the programs come from the dis- cussions with the community. “We are midwiving a community in which the spiritual questions are the everyday, real-life questions,” Reed said. “Do I have work? Does my neighbor have affordable health care? Are the [neighborhood] children receiving an equi- table education? What might God have us do with this?”
Then the Leaven Project hosted a class led by Dick Harmon, an IAF organizer, on how land, labor and capital intersect, and how people can bring about a more just and sustainable economic system. It emboldened those who launched “Money Move” in 2009 to create worker-owned cooperative enterprises to resolve unease about unemploy- ment and people working in jobs they don’t consider their mission. One such enterprise is a soapmaking co-op.
Toward sustainability ELCA support for the Leaven Project amounted to $35,000 in 2010 and $25,000 in 2011. That support is expected to continue four to five more years, said Ruben Duran, ELCA program director for new congregations. The Oregon Synod has helped with $25,000 in 2010; $17,000 this year; and $12,000 slated for 2012. Redeemer has a goal of raising $400,000 in congrega- tional giving and $600,000 from the sale of parking-lot par- cels. And the Leaven Project has raised $20,000 on its own. Oregon Synod Bishop Dave Brauer-Rieke finds the project hopeful, but said, “It’s like the first five years of an apple tree. You never get any apples. Whether it will be fruitful or not, we don’t know.”
Membership and finances are challenges across the synod. Eighty percent of its 115 congregations have fewer than 100 worshipers. Brauer-Rieke said “plate and pledge” don’t work in an environment where many have no interest in attending church.
Possible solutions include online appeals for donations, renting out building space and partnerships with like- minded faith communities, he said. Brauer-Rieke credits Redeemer for being the first con- gregation to come to him with a plan for its own demise. When Redeemer proposed the Leaven Project, Brauer- Rieke said, “If not this, what? This congregation has all of the markers of maturity, outreach and understanding realities.” Today mission-building isn’t on a “fast track like open- ing a McDonald’s,” Duran said. “We are beyond the days of trying to impose a ‘brand.’ We are tailoring the idea of propelling God’s purpose on earth through the people who live in the community.” Susan Engh, ELCA program director for congregation-
based organizing, echoed that vision. “Leaders of the Leaven Project aren’t just thinking, ‘How can we gather enough people to start a new church?’ ” she said. “They’re looking at what people in the neighborhood are already doing ... to be an activist community from the start.” After all, Brauer-Rieke said, “If we don’t learn how to talk to people who aren’t churched, the pool is getting smaller.” M
August 2011 17
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