March Breakfast - Church With

Friends,

Good breakfast.  I hope that the nutrition of the apples and bananas balances out the sugars of the fritters and maple bars.  Then again, the fritters were made with apples and the bars with maple syrup and those are both natural so they must be good, right?

It was good for John, Rich, Ken and myself to get together and check-in with one another.  If for no other reason than to just be reminded that we are not alone in this endeavor, then I still think the breakfasts are worth it.   As usual we did a little update with one another which ended up focusing most on our kids; health, growing up, daffodilium and the expense of college (may that bubble burst soon). 

We spent the second half of our time in a really good discussion on the Christianity Today article "Church-With: Small churches find their future in neighborhood renewal."   I really appreciated the questions, discussion and interest.  I agree with Rich that the Rosewood community does have a lot of similarities with South Tacoma; high rental rate, few gathering places, struggle with communal identity...  I also agree with YFC Ken that one of the hopes is for neighbors to get to know neighbors; to build healthy relationships.  South Tacoma is a big space to try and do that (13 square miles) unlike the hilltop or fircrest.  However, we do have smaller neighborhoods that compose that larger area; manitou, oakland/madrona, edison and arlington each of which used to have their own identity.  We concluded by discussing the STAR center and its potential role in building community.  The jury is still out on this one, let's hope it does. 

Though we didn't come to any conclusions or action steps (which was not really the goal), i feel like we raised some good questions that I'll try to list here:
1.  Are their resident leaders in the neighborhoods who could use a little encouragement?
2.  Does it take great anger or great hope to motivate resident leaders?  If so, what might be the source of that anger?  The object of that hope?
3.  Is there a role in community development for churches whose building is in South Tacoma but members aren't?
4.  Do we serve congregations that might be willing to invest (time, talents & treasures) in something that we would not own (like the Rosewood Cafe)? 
5.  Is there anything God is calling us, the South Tacoma Ministers, to do next?

Our next breakfast is set for Wednesday, April 11th at 8:30 at Celebration Christian Fellowship where a recently tanned Jeff will likely be fixing some  mean biscuits and gravy.  Yum. 

Peace, Ken