These are some testimonies we are sharing in our buletins in michigan to draw attention to the dire need of the support from our 4 missioncenters, and the eventual one michigan missioncenter. I hope that on January 17th you can pray with us that the offerings collected may help secure and green our building to be more self sustaining for this congregation to out of its generosity, stand on its two feet. If you are in a congregation in michigan, ask your pastor about collecting a special offering for Detroit Hope on Racial Justice Day.
Help from Tough Places
We have a ministry in-between two rival gangs. Literally one resides and calls their home 7 mile, a mile and a half north, and the other, for which most of our members come from, resides a mile and a half south, the Brightmoor Gang. Our church sits in a kind of neutral territory. You can witness that fact because we do not have tags of either gang on our church or inside of it. The green space around the church is a stark contrast to all of the cement and blight of the rest of the area in northwest Detroit.
Over the years, we have had a number of young men come and take part in our organization. It has become a house of senior high men who grew up in 5 years, and now we see as young adult leaders of our ministry. One such individual was an enforcer in our neighborhood, and he would come around and check on his members and their siblings at our church. He kept his distance, but you could tell he was really getting involved in our program. One night he surprised us.
“Would you like for me to mix the cool-aid?” he asked.
The next week, he added laying out the plates for pizza, next, set up the chairs and wiped down tables, the next following week, he was cleaning up and reminding people they should be cleaning up their own messes. This was eliminating a huge stress to our ministry picking up after 70-80 congregants at our Wednesday night pizza church. Over the journey, in the last 8 months, great mentoring has happened between this young adult and Jeff Stoker. Because of the fostered relationship this young adult is calling our movement his church, and we are asking for his input and help in the formation and direction of this emerging congregation. We look for this man to become a leader not just for today but for some time to come.
Doodles on the Table
I was originally an artist. I went to Graceland University to follow my talents and dreams to be an art teacher. While there I was involved in the campus ministry program led by Blake Smith. His mentoring and direction let me get involved in missionary endeavors including a trip to Chattanooga and a World Service Corps Assignment to Detroit where I found my calling. Interesting how a calling by Jesus Christ will just seem to up and grab a person. I have been church planting at Detroit Hope for over 4 years, and we are currently in our fifth year working in this neighborhood. We have done great ministry, and been in some tough places, and it always is good to re-group and organize with field staff and others dealing with the ministry of the leading the church. One such time, our field staff were gathered at Bluewater Campground for some direction and discerning about our field goals and passions to discern what matters most as Christ has called us all in our most recent revelation. Stassi Cramm knows how sometimes a 4 day discussion and meetings can get long and lengthy, and one way she keeps our minds turning is to have butcher paper out on the table with goodie bags, and crayons. I was drawing on the table, as I like to do, sharing testimonies when they added to the discussion, and then went back to drawing. (The only way I multi-task well.) Anyway, I was drawing our church seal, with the sacraments all eight of them circled around, with our historic sites and the villages the Community of Christ ministers to around the world.
During one of our breaks, Eleanor West came up to me, looked over my shoulder and said “if you bring me a painting of that I will give you some donation to your Mission and your building projects.” Little did she know I would make her a 4 foot painting of it. It resides now in Boyne City congregation and they and this disciple made a great donation with the intent that it would help us and we could in turn share the message and mission of Christ through this artwork, Through other trips. I always have felt good about this friendship and it really is helping to reach our goal in the Give Hope to Detroit Hope campaign. This is where the inspiration came for the Artwork Sale at our mission conference and online at detroithopecofchrist.org.
Baptism Buddies
At Detroit Hope we have two 8 year olds. They have been coming for 2 years, almost three. This last year the first, Isaac Miller, turned 8 in January. Having had just took our pre-baptismal class we call new believers, this young man was excited to be baptized. So excited it was his Yo buddy at church and at school. Before this he began to witness to his school teacher about how Yo Buddies works at church and everyone shares the blessings that people are thankful to God for, and then the concerns that are lifted up in prayer as a part of the whole congregation praying for them. This was accepted by that teacher, and became something that they would share Yo buddies and Me Toos as a part of their “Show and Tell time” every day at school. Isaac is so passionate, that he would share these in the car on the way to church and home on the way to his home. The second one Arrionna turned 8 in June, on the 29th in fact. She was just as excited, but dreaded the fact that Isaac one of her best friends would be baptized first with out her. But she didn’t tell anyone. Especially Isaac. Isaac, the spiritual person he is knew and wanted to share his baptism with someone else, and he asked me, “Could I wait to have my baptism with Arrionna?” I smiled, because I had been privy to that information Arrionna wasn’t sharing. I said great! And played it off and said, If you think you can wait that long. Then I told him to go tell Arrionna what he had decided to do. When he got there, I was standing back a bit, and could see over his shoulder to the surprised and amazed Arrionna who honestly looked like Christmas had come in late January.
When they were both baptized it was like we all gained a brother and a sister, thicker than blood into the Community of Christ at Detroit Hope. They are great disciples and additions to the body of Christ.
Detroit Hope Starts a Clothing Closet
Pastor Jacob Blakesley Reporting
In my first year at Detroit hope I had a lot of supporters from home. Lamoni was my home congregation, and the first Christmas was the first, and hardest Christmas I had faced as a minister. We had children coming in from off the street that had said their hats and gloves had been stolen at home. I believed them to an extent, but when I checked with the parents, they said yeah, we bought them this character hat, and it was so cool it was sought after. I said if we had a hat gloves and mitten drive this could support the community and its children.
That Christmas there was such an outpouring of hats gloves and mittens from congregations near and far in Michigan that every kid we knew could have had 5 sets of hats, gloves, and mittens. Because of this, we opened our clothing closet ministry. When Lamoni congregation got wind of this they felt called and inspired to fundraise for an over sized washer and dryer units. What A BLESSING!!! They were low energy but also they would continue to help us offer clean clothes out of our closet when sometimes we would receive clothes that have been sitting in a garage for 6 to 8 seasons they got dirty. That was the initial place it provided ministry.
Additionally in the Michigan job crisis we have found that landlords, renters, and evictions have become more swift and fierce, and some of our members have been evicted in cold weather, rain storms, dumping belongings into the mud puddles and pot holes on the curbs. These washers have cleaned what remaining belonging they had, and the clothing closet helped people get back on their feet when they were restored in their living situation.
This is one way Detroit Hope is outreaching and living for the call of God into our community. If you have ever wondered why clothing closets were so much work, or if it was worth the effort, get out and listen to the needs of our dire, desperate communities. They are in needing of the healing, restoring and reconciling nature of the Community of Christ, and we need to care enough or ask God to empower us to do a great task to let others know we are Christians by our love.
Stewardship at it’s Best
Pastor Jacob Reporting
In our campaign towards repairing our building and making it less of a burden on the mission center and the rest of Michigan when we move to one united mission center, it has always been a goal at Detroit Hope to make our ministry more financially responsible. One day Jeff Stoker, a seventy and our financial officer at Detroit Hope, affectionately called by the kids at the church “Pastor Jeff” was looking at the bills we cover locally. One of which is the water bill. He was looking at how much we were spending, at it was over 500 dollars a month, with usage rates under 40 dollars. This did not sit right. He went down town, sat at the DTE offices, and met with one of their representatives. When he got done, the lady he talked to told him that the remainder of 460 dollars a month, it was going down the drain literally. It was accounting for our street drain in our parking lot at they were charging us for the water from the snow and the hard winter we had. I must admit we prayed when we found out the bill was so high. We also informed Dena DeVormer and Deb Crowley of the bill and they prayed for it. One Day we were setting down with Paragon Management Director Margaret Davy and Outreach Services Director Bishop Tom Jeffers, and they both suggested that because they’re renting the parking lot from the church they should cover the water that runs off of the parking lot eliminating that bill from our books. Because it felt like such a blessing, we asked if one of the items on our list, the leaky basement, could be the first project we start. Rick Mac Gregor and our World Service Corps volunteers remove the tile, clean up the basement, painted everything with dry-lock, and made the space useable for ministry again. Without these savings and your generosity this miracle wouldn’t have happened. If this project did not occur the inspectors from the county and the city could have come in and said our basement was moldy, wet and a health hazard, but now, this space is a blessing and our cleanest slate to have ministry restored in our building. Thank You!
Pizza Church Receives back Blessings
Wednesday night is Pizza Church. If you want to go find out more about this please go to http://www.detroithopecofchrist.org and click on videos to find more in depth about this. But anyway, we buy pizza, lots of pizza. We feed our congregation each Wednesday after our seekers service. We flip back and forth on who we buy our pizza from either Prince’s Pizza or Little Cesar’s. The local manager at Prince’s Pizza really likes us because he is a leader in the community and his family owns and operates their business. One year, his brothers got together and decided our church would be the recipient of their local charity project. Jeff and I walked in to order 10 five-dollar pizzas and they said, “hey, come around back and get these turkeys for your ministry.” On the way out, even though they are not Christians they said “may God bless you and your ministry, your doing well for this community.” Upon getting back to the church with the turkeys we didn’t have enough room in our freezers for all of them. Jeff and I looked at our congregation and realized we could think of 10 adults and there families we could give these turkeys to. One of the women told me this would be a struggle for her because her oven wasn’t working. Then two others approached and said the same thing. How would we help these situations? Jeff suggested to myself and the three that we roast them in our turkey roaster right at the church then when they were done cut all the meat up and place it in quart bags and give the cooked meat to them. Each of the three was happy with two quart bags of turkey each and they insisted we give the leftovers to others in the congregation. This blessing really stretched! We are constantly thinking at Detroit Hope about how we can take what we’re given and help God’s people.
We Share becomes Who Me?
Some of you may remember Terrence Hall. He was the short gentleman that got up in front of the large missionary crowd gathered in Mount Pleasant for the weekend in March or April. You would not know it because I was late because of a flat tire, and we spent the night at the church, and then after opening ceremonies on Saturday, and the set up of our display, but Terrence, quiet Terrence answered the call to share his testimony in front of all kinds of people so that I could go provide courtroom ministry for another member of our congregation in another part of the state. From what I hear, from my wife and others, Terrence felt the spirit, faught his fears, and shared courageously what this church has done for him and why he shares the good news of Jesus Christ. We are so proud of him because since this step forward that he took in his faith and confidence, he has decided to do singing solos, and lead the choir at our peacemakers camp during the summer. Terrence is an emerging disciple in the Community of Christ, and with your continued support we can continue to cultivate young adult leaders from our youth programs into being tomorrows oaks of righteousness that will do greater ministry than we are now providing for them.
