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Accompaniment: Walking the Road with Companions

Servant Leadership at the Gathering with Companions and Coaches

Written by Bobbi Cyr (she/her)

As we have entered into the Easter Season, I have been especially drawn to the road that Jesus walked with his disciples. Jesus showed us how to be in community with, share in life’s joys and hardships with, how to eat with, pray with, serve with, and how to build relationships with one another. Even after death, we see the Resurrected Jesus walk the Road to Emmaus alongside people he had just met, and he gives us a model of a good companion. Jesus accompanies them in their journey, sharing in story, and breaking bread with them. We are called to actively participate in God’s mission in the world and like Jesus, we meet various people with whom we share in this journey. At its heart, accompaniment is walking alongside others with Jesus, as we answer God’s call to mission.  I believe this is what it means to be a Servant Coach and Companion at the Gathering.

How Do We Accompany the City in Which We Serve

In mission, our companions on the road may be individual people in our own community, in other communities, or around the world. As we accompany these companions, it’s important to remember that service comes in all forms. When we think about Accompaniment Day (formerly known as Service Learning), we need to remember the story of the road to Emmaus and that we are here to walk this road with the people of New Orleans. Tiffany Wilson, serving on the Accompaniment team, reminds us, “We need to enter into this space with an intentional mindset that we do not serve to save. [New Orleans] is doing just fine on its own.  We are here to accompany the city in the ways in which God’s already working through these partners. As we prepare, we are intentionally asking our partners how we can help them reach their goals.” That might be a physical task, but it also might be educational in learning about the culture and food, or more justice-centered work. Regardless of what this service looks like, as we engage in God’s mission through accompaniment, we must remember that in order to proclaim the Gospel, we must first place priority on being in relationship. 

What does Servant Leadership Look Like at the Gathering?

Accompaniment is one of the central experiences of the Gathering. Remember those companions who enter our life and walk alongside us on the journey? As you engage in the purpose of Accompaniment day, you will not be alone on the road; Servant Companions will walk alongside participants and their leaders helping them to connect with local organizations, hear their stories, work together, and learn how to engage in similar work at home. Servant Companions are a pivotal link between the Gathering participants and the Accompaniment team. These leaders guide congregational groups as they learn, experience, and serve alongside the people of New Orleans.  

So You Were a Participant… Now What?

Recently, I had the opportunity to connect with Evan Rogaczewski who started his journey with the Gathering in New Orleans as a participant in both 2009 and 2012. Like many young adults after high school, Evan found it hard to stay connected to the church while going to college. Since he enjoyed the Gathering as a participant, he found that volunteering as a Servant Companion was an easy choice and one way that he could stay involved, while accompanying youth as they served. Evan recalled how helpful it was to have companions guiding him on past mission trips. He shared that when things don’t always go right, it is nice having someone who has been there; especially someone who not only thrives in the midst of chaos, but can help provide stability in those situations. Evan wanted to be one of those people to support others and volunteered as a Servant Companion in both Detroit (2015) and in Houston (2018). 

For Evan, his favorite part of being a Servant Companion was building relationships with fellow volunteers, several of whom he is still good friends with 6–8 years later. When the days are long and exhaustion sets in, there may also be a lot of inside jokes that keep the team afloat. Being a Servant Companion provides a great opportunity for growth. As both a Coach and a Companion, you are in a position where you have to be calm and think on your feet. The greatest growth, both personally and in faith, happens when we are challenged and stretched. Evan shares that beyond the early mornings and the work, it’s really the community that makes it worth all it and why he keeps coming back!

Answering the Call

God is actively at work in the world and in the city we are being called and sent to. Together, we will be in mutual relationship with the city of New Orleans, asking how we can actively participate in God’s mission and work.

Both Coaches and Servant Companions are equipped to share the good news and serve our participants as they work to serve the neighbors of New Orleans. 

Coaches train, mentor, and support young adults who serve as Servant Companions during the Gathering. 

Servant Companions guide Gathering participants as they learn, experience, and serve alongside the people of New Orleans on their Accompaniment day. 

God invites us to the table and sends us to go out as companions to walk with and to serve. When we tire, our fellow companions hold us up; when our faith is weak, our companions remind us of what we have seen and shared together. Like the people on the road to Emmaus, God gives us companions for this purpose. 

Learn More and Apply

Is the Holy Spirit stirring within you to accept this call to be a Servant Coach or Companion in New Orleans?

Applications to be a Servant Companion Coach are open through June 2. Apply Here!
Applications for Servant Companions will open on June 15. Get more information on Volunteering of the Gathering HERE.

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Lenten Reflection 1: What Will It Take to End Hunger?

 

A Bigger “We”

“Your Father who sees in secret will reward you”
(Matthew 6:4).

 

 

Almost eight years had passed since Marina set foot inside a church building. A car accident when she was in her late 40s had left her homebound with chronic pain and without use of her legs. One of her favorite visits in her home was on Sunday afternoon, when her pastor would come by to give Marina Holy Communion and pray with her. With a half flight of stairs leading up to the church door and more stairs between the foyer and the sanctuary, worshiping with her congregation was not an option.

That’s why Marina was so surprised to get a call from her pastor in July 2020 asking her to be part of a conversation about reopening the building for worship during the COVID-19 pandemic. She was quiet in that first Zoom meeting, listening to the other 10 people share their ideas and concerns. Some were scared, some weren’t, but most were exasperated and at a loss. One man seemed to put it best when he said, “This is all new to us. We’ve just never had to think about what it would mean to not be in church together ever.”

Before anyone could murmur agreement, Marina made her sole contribution to the discussion: “Whaddya mean ‘we’?”

This “we” — or, more specifically, this call to reexamine “we” — is at the core of the gospel message for Ash Wednesday this year and, indeed, of the church’s vision of a just world where all are fed.

Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 6:1-6 and 16-21 is the starting point on the journey through Lent. In this excerpt from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus admonishes his audience about public, showy displays of spirituality. Rather than take pleasure or pride in giving alms, we are to hide the deed even from ourselves. Rather than pray in public, we are to retire to private rooms. Rather than display the effects of our fasting, Jesus tells us, “put oil on your head and wash your face” (6:17).

In fact, each of Jesus’ directives seems to contradict the very notion of what we have come to call “being a public church.” The sermon of Jesus appears to favor private spirituality over public displays of faith. He seems to suggest that faith is best lived out in the quiet and private spaces of our hearts rather than in public.

However, reading the sermon in this way misses the fact that the Gospel of Matthew is a call to be this very public church, which will “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). We might believe that the message of Lent is to practice private piety, yet Jesus focuses here not on the mere practices of faith but on the community of faith. In other words, Jesus is talking not about the what but about the who — who we are and who God is.

Michael Joseph Brown hints at this in his commentary on Matthew in True to Our Native Land: An African American New Testament Commentary (Fortress, 2007), noting the subtle assumptions about privilege in Matthew 6. Jesus’ command to the disciples to pray in their “room” (6:6) assumes they have a private room to retreat to, even though Jesus himself “has nowhere to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20). “Almsgiving,” as Brown writes, “assumes that you have something to give.” Even fasting assumes that one has the means to make choices about when to start and stop their own hunger

Jesus’ message is a challenge to a privileged church to think more carefully about who they are. The problem isn’t that they are doing the wrong things. Giving alms to support neighbors is a good thing. Praying in the synagogue is, well, what is supposed to happen when the community is gathered. They are going through the right motions. But they have forgotten why they are doing them, and they have forgotten who they are. Their practices are no longer about the good of the community or the good of the neighbor but are mere performances, focused entirely on themselves.

Almsgiving, praying, fasting — these are practices meant to remind us of each other. But has being faithful become a matter of making sure we are seen rather than of training our hearts and minds to see each other? Marina’s fellow congregant in the Zoom call was more than willing to help the church with what it needed to do. But as her question revealed, he had forgotten who the church is called to be. His “we” was no more than an “I.”

Yet even when the church forgets, God remembers. In each of the dictates to his followers, Jesus reminds them of the “Father who sees in secret.” He reminds us that God’s concern for us is not measured by our conspicuousness, nor is it limited by our narrow imagination.

Accompanying our neighbors in God’s work of building a just world where all are fed means reimagining who we are and who we are called to be. There are so many stories shared across this church about friends and neighbors addressing hunger and poverty together. But perhaps the significance of faith in God, who “sees in secret,” is best exemplified not by the stories we can tell but by the stories we can’t — stories of God at work “in secret” and in hidden ways. These are the stories we don’t hear, of neighbors whose names can’t be shared.

They include the story of the clinic that cannot be named because unjust laws would put its noncitizen clients at risk. They include the story of women in a shelter whose names must be hidden to keep the women safe from their abusers. They include the story of ministries in conflict zones whose details cannot be shared without exposing workers and guests to violence.

These are the stories that cannot be trumpeted but are nevertheless triumphant examples of the work of God, “who sees in secret.”

Ending hunger means seeing what unjust power tries to keep hidden. It means defining “we” in a way that threatens the principalities and powers — including our own privilege — that make everything about “I.” And it means remembering, when we are isolated or marginalized, that “I” am never excluded from God’s “we.”

Jesus’ call in the Gospel reading reminds us that being the church requires a definition of community that is more expansive, more diverse and, thus, more beautiful than the exclusive vision put forth by
those in power.

Reflection Questions

  1. Think, journal or share about a time when you felt left out or unable to speak because of fear. How does that memory impact your reflection on this reading and devotion?
  2. The members of Marina’s church were unable to see that their ability to climb stairs gave them the privilege to gather together in one space. The members of the ancient church to which Jesus was speaking were unable to see that their ability to give alms, fast and pray in private rooms was a privilege. What are some ways that privilege might affect who feels included in your community?
  3. What does your church community look like? In what ways are all neighbors in your community invited to share their experiences and ideas openly and freely with your congregation?

Prayer

Gracious and loving God, through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, you bring light and life for all the world. Help us to listen, learn and love until your light and life fill every community. Amen.

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The Importance of Service

by: Kyle Lefler

Jesus walked. Miles & miles across the hills and valleys of the Holy Land. He and his disciples traveled great distances with little comforts to be with, among and beside the people.

While we need not always travel great distances to be of service to others, we are called to be out among our neighbors. We are called to listen for where there is a need, to pay attention to injustice and to respond in ways that further God’s vision of justice on earth.

My own faith journey has been deeply strengthened by participating in acts of service, both in giving and receiving. As a young person, my youth group served through acts of generous charity and our leaders helped us understand how that charity could move into justice work through education and systemic change. Any work of service is best done in mutuality, where we are listening and responding to a need, rather than offering our own solution. The Gospels provide us with dozens example of that mutuality, through Christ’s society-shaking, humble actions.

When I was a sophomore in high school, I attended the 2006 ELCA Youth Gathering in San Antonio and saw service in action on the largest scale I had ever witnessed. There were dozens of organizations educating young people about needs in the world and empowering them to participate in advocating for and serving those in need. Many of us had never had the opportunity to learn and grow in such a way. We saw the Gospel being acted upon in tangible, accessible ways and learned about the calling we have as Christians to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly. 

Since then, I’ve had the privilege of leading groups through their Service Learning day at the Gathering. We have WALKED  the streets of cities from New Orleans, Detroit and Houston, listening and learning from those communities, and serving in ways that respond to their needs. I have seen young people’s attitudes transform from tiredness and disinterest to excitement and desire to do more in the course of just a few hours. Together, we become better disciples when we humble ourselves to listen and give of our own gifts of time and privilege. I believe Service Learning can be the most powerful moment of the Gathering for many of the attendees, as they experience a new place and find God’s calling within themselves… then take that calling back home to their own community.

May we always boldly go and do likewise.

 

Kyle Lefler serves as the year round program coordinator at Flathead Lutheran Bible Camp in NW Montana, overseeing year round retreat programming and onsite summer camp operations. Kyle is passionate about working with young people in God’s Creation and striving to create intentional community spaces where they are unconditionally loved & accepted, empowered & advocated for. She loves early morning lake swims, handwritten letters & the Avett Brothers.

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Accompaniment on the Ground

 

In this post, ELCA World Hunger summer intern Aml Mohamed reflects on her experiences of accompaniment in her home country of Egypt.

“Why are you interested in this position at the ELCA?” A classic, expected question during an interview. I paused and asked myself three questions. What is the difference between interning at the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and a regular nonprofit? Would I care as a practicing Muslim to work at a Lutheran faith-based institution? Would my identity as an Egyptian allow me to work and understand hunger in the US?

These are challenging questions for a rising junior in college. I am still in the process of unfolding my answers to these questions.

My tentative answer to the first question is “I don’t know!” I didn’t have the chance to compare work environments at the ELCA and other nonprofits, yet. However, what I can say is that there is something unique about working at a Lutheran faith-based institution. During orientation, we were learning about accompaniment and how it is reflected in the work of ELCA World Hunger. At the ELCA, accompaniment is defined as walking together in a solidarity that practices interdependence and mutuality. Initially, I was not sure how my life related to this model. However, after a few conversations with colleagues, I found that accompaniment is not an unfamiliar term to me. I was able to point to experiences where I saw accompaniment in my home country of Egypt.  

There is a hidden power in seeing people who look like you as change-makers. This what an old friend always used to say. For years, I was on the receiving end of nonprofit organizations’ work. I was involved in programs that focus on youth development and entrepreneurship. At the age of thirteen, I remember being impressed by the staff members working on these programs. Now I understand why — they looked like me.

It is important to see work done by people who look like you, speak your language, and understand your daily life. Those might be small details, but they matter. The nonprofits allowed people from my community to be leaders, therefore, my family and I were able to trust them more. The staff members and leaders were aware of the social views on education and extracurricular activities. For example, a shared view among my parents and others is that education and learning occur only in schools and classrooms. It was difficult to come to an agreement with them that extracurricular activities are as important as school education. However, the staff members understood the culture and communicated effectively and respectfully. Thus, they were able to show them that building life skills inside and outside the classroom is critical for one’s personal and professional growth.

There is also another aspect of accompaniment that I found prevalent in my context — trust. Do you remember when your teacher would assign you tasks to do in class, like resetting the classroom tables or giving your opinion and suggestions for an activity? In such moments, I always felt that I matter. I am young, but I am trusted. I am young, but I am responsible. I am young, but I can contribute with what I have and know.

Accompaniment is not always easy; sometimes it can seem as if organizations and individuals care more about seeing their logos and names on products and services than they do for the people they are working with. Accompaniment means walking together, but most importantly, it means giving one’s companion the full trust and agency to work in their communities. Trust that people can, and they will.

Why is it important to accompany? In my opinion, I think it makes all the difference. Seeing people who look like you, understand you and face similar daily trials sets a great example for the community where work is done. It gives hope, and it maintains dignity, freedom and agency. It means remembering that you are the partner that may be needed at that moment. However, you are not the most important piece of the work.

Working on hunger is sensitive, challenging and overwhelming. However, I work with these things in mind. I will remember the times when I was young and was trusted to do things on my own. I will remember admiring the fact that the leaders in the nonprofits looked like me and understood my context. I will remind myself that to the community I walk in, I am the guest. Everyone has assets that they can contribute to the work and the journey of development. Walking with each other, we can accomplish more together. I hope you can walk along!

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Accompaniment After Harvey

– Jessica Noonan

This past August as the summer was winding down and a new year of school was beginning, life along the Gulf Coast came to a standstill.  It was like time froze. Everything was a blur.  No one knew what day it was or what the next day would bring. When you come to Houston this summer, you will learn quickly that everyone has their “Harvey story.”  Living through it and seeing the devastation that followed Hurricane Harvey it still seems unimaginable—the rain that kept coming, rising waters, tornadoes… and the waiting.  My neighborhood had no physical damage.  It was pure luck that our house was just a little higher in elevation than the neighborhood one mile way with lots of flooding, or the neighborhood four miles away that was completely obliterated. There is a lot of guilt when your home is fine and your neighbor down the road has no home. Everyone has a story.

You might be wondering how has the hurricane changed our approach to how we walk alongside our Service Learning partners in Houston?  It hasn’t.  One of our values has always been accompaniment.  We are in relationship with our partners.  We listen to their needs. We still want to focus on the needs of our partners whatever they might be come June 2018.

Jessica Silverio is part of the Service Learning Team; she is helping to secure service learning projects for the Gathering.  She said, “Many people are still out of their schools or homes and some lost it all. Getting to see 30,000 youth come out to the streets and help in whatever way they can will be a great sight to see. It’s important to give people a chance to talk about their lives and how its changed since Harvey.”

We are a people of story—Jesus teaches us through story, the Bible is filled with the stories of our faith—we are a people of story.

When Gathering participants go to project sites our hope is that the partner shares the story of their organization, mission, and why this work matters.  We hope that Gathering participants share their story with partners.

We hope that participants go home and create new stories in their communities.

 

Jessica Noonan is the Service Learning Team Leader for the 2018 Gathering.

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End Hunger? The Single Most Important Step

This blog originally appeared on the Huffington Post Impact site: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ryan-p-cumming/end-hunger-the-single-mos_b_11136672.html.

A few years ago, I was at the World Food Prize in Des Moines, Iowa, for the Borlaug Dialogues, an annual international conference on food security, agriculture, and food science. Representatives from NGOs, businesses, local communities, and national governments offered their solutions to hunger around the world, from encouraging young agri-entrepreneurs to shipping fish heads to Africa. There was no end to creative (and, at times, dubious) solutions to world hunger.

What is the right answer? Maybe, like many at the Borlaug Dialogues argued, the solution is to increase agricultural output, since we have too many people and not enough food. On the other hand, some argue that we already produce more than enough for everyone, so food waste is the real issue. Maybe the answer lies in the science of GMOs that can “save the world from hunger, if we let them.” Perhaps the solution is more straightforward—give hungry people peanut butter. Or, it could involve transforming economic opportunity through social enterprise, the “only” solution to global poverty according to the author of that article. And so on and so on.

About the only thing most folks seem to agree on is that the answer isn’t more relief but more development. Figuring out which path toward development to take, though, is another matter. Even the best routes aren’t perfect. Increasing agricultural output doesn’t address rampant food waste. Developing more GMO seeds doesn’t address lack of clean water or lack of jobs. Microlending can provide huge benefits, but it doesn’t work everywhere and doesn’t work everywhere in the same way.

But there is a single step we can take to end hunger for good around the world and in our own communities: listening to one another. Too often, the “solutions” to hunger and poverty come down from the “top,” rather than rising up from the ground. Those of us in developed countries are moved by the problems we see in developing nations and bring our own solutions to bear in communities that are not our own. At its worst, this feeds the sort of “savior complex” on prominent display recently in the controversy over Louise Linton’s new memoir. At its best, this top-down model proffers solutions that simply don’t work.

The kind of meaningful listening that builds relationships between and within communities helps solutions arise that are effective and sustainable. This model “challenges one-sided, top-down, and donor-recipient approaches…and emphasizes the need for developing mutual relationships in which all are considered teachers and learners,” says Rev. Dr. Philip Knutson, the regional representative of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) in Southern Africa. Knutson warns that without cultivating relationships through listening, development projects can lose sight of context and “may be short-sighted, benefiting some but excluding others.”

 

Fyness Phiri of Chithope Village

Fyness Phiri of Chithope Village

When listening is authentic, though, programs can respond to a host of needs, including practical needs for economic empowerment and personal needs like recognition of self-dignity. In Malawi, the Evangelical Lutheran Development Service (ELDS), supported in part by the ELCA through ELCA World Hunger, is working with women and men to build community and overcome the challenges of hunger and poverty. (ELDS is the diaconate arm of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Malawi, led by Bishop Joseph Bvumbwe.) Fyness Phiri, one of the participants in the “Livelihoods Improvement and Empowerment Project,” recalls, “I was one of the poorest people in the village…before ELDS introduced this project.” Fyness used to ask her neighbors for money to buy food for herself, her husband, and their four children.

 

At a community meeting in 2013, Fyness joined other women to start a village savings and loan group. After some training and community-building meetings with ELDS, the group gave out its first loans. Fyness and the other women were able to start small businesses and purchase seeds and fertilizers for their farms. Eventually, the start-up money helped Fyness produce enough food to feed her family, pay back her loan, and sell some of her surplus at market. “Since I joined the project,” she says, “my life has completely changed. I have food in my house, and I’m able to send my children to school. Because of the knowledge [I’ve gained], I will be able to continue and help others even if the project phases out.” Because ELDS invested in the community and the relationships formed among the women, the impact is not only sustainable but replicable.

Extension worker Chesterman Kumwenda demonstrates how to use a treadle pump.

Extension worker Chesterman Kumwenda demonstrates how to use a treadle pump.

Microlending worked wonders for the women in Fyness’ village, but for Charles Chikwatu’s community, the problem was not access to funds but lack of water for their fields. Charles and other participants worked together to learn how to use efficient treadle pumps to increase the land they could tend for maize and tomatoes. The benefits of the new method are huge, Charles says: “I easily find money through sale of my crops [and] I have managed using the money from irrigation to send my children to secondary school. I have also started a grocery with the money from this farming.”

New irrigation systems wouldn’t help Fyness, who didn’t even have money for seeds. A village savings and loan wouldn’t have helped Charles’ community address lack of access to water. But by listening closely, ELDS helped Fyness, Charles, and their communities transform their own situations.

And because of this, the benefits extend far beyond the immediate needs for food, according to Knutson. “[C]ollaboration between individual members in a community has enabled the individuals and the community to gain in knowledge and confidence to leverage other benefits enabling them to start new business and advocate for government support for local clinics and other rural development projects,” he says.

New, creative solutions to hunger and poverty abound, and many offer much promise. When these are employed in the context of relationships where participants become leaders and vision is built from the ground up, effective action can take root and grow. Sometimes, the answer is reducing waste. In some places, the answer is increased production. With some groups, the answer is enterprise. But in every time, place, and case, the best response is to listen.

Photos: Gazeli Phiri and Dickens Mtonga, courtesy of ELDS

Ryan P. Cumming, Ph.D., is program director of hunger education with ELCA World Hunger.  He can be reached at Ryan.Cumming@ELCA.org.

 

 

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