Mandate eNewsletter, 2009 - Issue No. 2

And the Aliens Among You Shall Rejoice (Deut. 26:11)
by Ken Evans

Clarkston, Georgia is a suburban town east of Atlanta filled with refugees from more than 16 different countries that have been resettled over the past few years by several nearby agencies. The apartment complexes and surrounding neighborhoods have changed from being middle-class American to being one of the more ethnically diverse areas in the country. Having graduated from Clarkston High School in 1972, I find this amazing change even more special and personal.

Clarkston is about 10 minutes from Intown Community Church, a Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) congregation just east of downtown Atlanta, where I am Director of Community Service and Outreach. My calling is to engage my congregation in giving time and finances to the various serving ministries and organizations working in the Atlanta area. Along with other areas of ministry that come with being close to a large metropolitan area, Clarkston is an obvious target area for our ministry.

Neither my math degree nor my seminary education prepared me for working with the poor, prisoners, the homeless, the addicted, or refugees. Therefore I’ve had to navigate a fairly large learning curve and make the most of reading, seminars, personal experience and role models.

One of my best resources has been the distance learning courses from the Chalmers Center at Covenant College. I became acquainted with the Chalmers Center through the PCA Mercy Ministry conferences. The distance learning courses gave me an opportunity to catch up on what was lacking in my understanding of poverty and mercy ministry. The first benefit was the addition of multiple resources to better understand the context of being poor in America and around the world.

The reading material in the first course, Foundations and Principles of Holistic Ministry, was excellent for laying a foundation and building upon a Biblical understanding of poverty and need. Many extra-biblical sources on poverty can be politically driven, whereas the assigned articles cut through the politics and helped me understand more about the broken relationships of the fall and the multifaceted issues of need. This is a benefit to building wisdom in deciding who and how we serve as individuals and as a congregation.

A deeper, Biblical understanding of poverty and need gained from my readings gave me information to pass on to my congregation. It’s helping us all move beyond bad decisions based on shallow political thought, knee-jerk reactions, and guilt rooted in ignorance of the issues. As individuals and as a church I think we are further along in making sure our efforts at mercy ministry are indeed helpful in a holistic way. The second distance learning course, Principles and Practices of U.S. Economic Development Ministry, introduced me to Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) for the first time as well as to other financial concepts involved in serving the poor. Later, I chose IDA programs as a topic for one of our church’s occasional forum discussions, and because of our history and heart for refugee ministry, the dialogue turned towards refugees. We agreed early on that refugees would be the target group for our first IDA program.

Our team started from zero, having no experience or knowledge of IDA programs other than what I learned and passed on from the Chalmers Center’s course. We researched other programs, found suitable financial literacy material for refugees, and used existing relationships in the refugee community to invite participants. The team was enthusiastic. We offered a 12-week financial literacy class and a year-long IDA program with 1 to 1 matching funds. The IDA program will end in December 2009.

If examined critically, our program has flaws, mistakes, and problems to be fixed next time. However we have 16 Burmese families who will benefit from their faithfulness in saving. With their savings and our matching funds they will have significant down payments for the cars that are a high priority need in the refugee community.

The fact that the program is going as well as it has is testimony to the faithful and diligent work of the team at Intown Church and to the foundation laid by the distance learning course from the Chalmers Center. And we honor God for His grace through those workers whose heart for ministry outweighed their experience and knowledge of the program.

God willing, we will have another IDA program. Using our experience in Clarkston and further study using the resources provided by the Chalmers Center and others, we expect to do an even better job in serving those to whom God takes us.

Ken Evans is Director of Community Service and Outreach at Intown Community Church in Atlanta, Georgia. He is married to Terry Hinton Evans and has six daughters and two sons-in-law.

For more information about the Chalmers Center, visit us at www.chalmers.org.

12/14/09