Stronger Together A Story of Risk, Reward, and Real Community

I will say for me as a pastor in all my career in ministry, I have never experienced more transformative work than what I have in the change maker initiative.

And here’s the reason I think for both individuals experienced more transformative work than what I have in the change maker initiative. And here’s the reason I think for both individuals and for congregations, there is something transformative about letting go of the solid ground.

We’ve been standing on the ways we have always done things, the ways we know how to do things, and venturing out into the wilderness, out in the wilderness where we don’t feel like we’re on such stable ground where we’re doing things we’re not so sure about.

And we are, we have no choice but to trust that the next step will be something God is leading us into pay attention to that, that’s where the magic happens.

We really are trying to do something new and also in a format that churches can get involved in here as part of the team in their own way with whatever resources they’ve got. Whether they’re very small attendance churches, large churches.

Well, today we spent the whole morning with Lydia Patterson Institute, which is a ministry of the South Central jurisdiction right here in El Paso, probably half a mile from one of the bridges that crosses into Juarez. Some of us took the opportunity to walk in the shoes of the student.

We, uh, took that walk as a student would crossing the bridge into El Paso and to the school. And it reminded me of the risk that these students take on a daily basis. But we have to look at the uniqueness of what being on the borderland, what opportunities are presented to us. It is about taking risk to really get to know our neighbor and to find out what are the needs of our neighbor.

And it’s not our dream for Lydia Patterson. It’s Lydia Patterson’s dream that we’re gonna step into. So It’s a real partner that brings not just need, but things that these churches don’t have. Stories of students and work that it is doing that is bringing people together and changing lives. And there is something for the church to learn and to grow from in that partnership as well as ways for it to support that work of Lydia Patterson. So the storytelling, what our idea was, we wanna tell the world about Lydia Patterson.

Why? Because it is a place that it’s unique. So for us, it was an idea to let everybody know within the jurisdiction at least, but also for them to be part of it, to do it together. So we threw around things like, um, murals, right?

First thing that comes to mind, like, oh, murals. And then you do little stories. So it becomes a mural of all of us. You know, we’re talking about having people tell their stories, being alumni, being part of, uh, Trinity first, where Ms. Lee Patterson was, uh, congregant.

You know, different ways that you’ve known about Lydia Paterson or not, or what you had heard or what you wanna know.
So that’s what we want to do in sorts of storytelling. Just to let everybody know about Lydia Patterson so that we can continue to do this ministry, which to me is very, very valuable and very spiritual and very needed.

This is a chance to, to really make a difference, not only in in the lives of the people from Lydia Patterson, but in our own lives.
You know, make a difference. Get out of our little comfort zone. But in particular with this project, since it’s about telling stories, we can start out telling some stories that they want to tell and then we can start telling our stories.

Not only is that storytelling good for the person telling the story, it’s good for the people hearing it too, because we live in a world right now that really needs to hear other people’s stories instead of just saying, oh, they fit in this category, or they fit in that category. What I really hope of the churches that stay with this project that we’re hoping to give roots to is that these churches will become agents of hope and agents of good news about what’s happening at the border. And we’re deeply in need of good news and stories of hopefulness about what happens at the border between Mexico and the United States.

We get so few of those stories, and I think these churches have a real opportunity just like they are everywhere else, are in the change maker work about lifting the lid off of that imagination and saying, just like they are everywhere else, are in the change maker work about lifting the lid off of that imagination and saying, between Mexico and the United States. We get so few of those stories, and I think these churches have a real opportunity to tell a different story than what most people are hearing in the US these days.

So the challenges in El Paso, just like they are everywhere else, are in the change maker work about lifting the lid off of that imagination and saying, what if there was a different way of being, a different way of seeing what it means to be a Christian in the world today, what it means to be a church in the world today. My hope would be that we continue an outward movement. Instead of there being a concern of who’s gonna come to us, what is it that the church can do for the community. And that gives me hope and that gives me courage to see the students.

Students themselves. There can be no barrier of bridge or a wall or a river. They are the example to me today of what it means to take a risk. And if they can take that risk as young students, surely the church can take a risk to.