Diagnose, Engage, Transform: A Report on How Congregations Use KLC Training to Improve Communities by Kansas Leadership Center

A Report on How Congregations Use Kansas Leadership Center Training to Improve Community Health FEBRUARY 2013

LEADERSHIP&FAITH TRANSFORMING COMMUNITIES

BY POLLY BASORE

REVITALIZE LEADERSHIP & FAITH TRANSFORMING COMMUNITIES OBJECTIVES

IMPROVE churches

INCREASE community health civic leadership

KANSAS LEADERSHIP CENTER • LEADERSHIP & FAITH REPORT • FEBRUARY 2013

QUICK FIX, Everyone likes a

but some problems defy solutions

Poverty, hunger and racism linger, unbound by time or geography. Progress is stymied by human tendencies to fear change and to disassociate from the suffering of others. These kinds of problems are what the Kansas Leadership Center (KLC) calls “adaptive challenges” – problems where answers aren’t straightforward and human behavior and values may need to change. The Kansas Health Foundation established the KLC in 2007 with the purpose of better equipping Kansans to foster progress on tough community challenges. The Foundation believed that more effective civic leadership would be crucial to advancing its mission of creating healthier Kansas communities.

Center. “Christians, after all, are called to work in the community, to help thy neighbor, to make the world a better place.”

residents without access to healthy food, immigrants needing to learn English, and children lagging in school from lack of physical activity.

KLC’s Leadership & Faith Transforming Communities program was launched in January 2009 with a $1.1 million grant from the Kansas Health Foundation and the United Methodist Church of Kansas.

This report profiles eight of these congregations, along with highlights of a follow-up survey of program participants and church leaders.

The program invites churches to send teams of four to seven members through an intensive four-day training session, followed seven months later by three more days. Teams are directed to identify and take action on a community challenge. From its inception, the program had three objectives: 1) Revitalize United Methodist churches, 2) Enhance commitment to community health and 3) Increase civic leadership capacity. The goals themselves are adaptive challenges, difficult to measure in terms of success. Here is what we know for sure: More than 280 people from 58 United Methodist congregations have gone through the program so far. Dozens have addressed such challenges as people trapped in generational poverty, rural

It wasn’t long before both the Kansas Health Foundation and the Kansas Leadership Center saw the potential in working with churches. “Our feeling has been that if we want to transform the civic culture, we need to find key leverage points. Faith communities are a key leverage point,” says Ed O’Malley, CEO of the Kansas Leadership

“The big grand noble aspiration is to transform the civic culture of Kansas …to make more progress on the issues that matter most,” O’Malley says. That will happen when people stop coming up with solutions to perceived problems by themselves, or with their allies and friends, and then trying to persuade others to implement their solution. “We have to engage across factions even as we define what the problem is.”

Nearly all participants who responded to the survey indicated they increased their own capacity for civic leadership and applied those skills. Most felt their congregations gained a better understanding of issues impacting community health, though actual impact varied. Most felt at least some members of their congregations became more engaged in their churches.

Steve Coen, Kansas Health Foundation president and CEO, says he knows what progress can be made when people of faith, equipped with civic leadership skills, tackle daunting challenges in their communities. Because members of his own church, Chapel Hill Fellowship, went through KLC Leadership & Faith Transforming Communities (L&F) an impoverished neighborhood in Wichita now has a brand new health clinic, a soup kitchen and tutors for children in its schools.

The last is especially important to Bishop Scott Jones, who says the chief adaptive challenge facing the 688 churches under his supervision is this: “We have a problem with churches that become clubs for the benefit of their members,” he said. Jones believes church vitality ultimately depends on whether a congregation is engaged in what goes on outside its walls.

Seeing what has happened at his church and hearing about others, Coen is convinced the program is a success: “It has gone beyond our expectations, even exceeded our best hopes. It is a bright and shining star in the cap of the Kansas Leadership Center and they should be very proud of what this program has done for Kansas.”

O’Malley is similarly interested in getting Kansans to step outside themselves.

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SPEAKING TO LOSS the key to overcoming cultural differences

PLEASANT

VALLEY Bringing Neighbors Together

Founded in 1952, Pleasant Valley United Methodist (PVUMC) is nestled in a tree-filled residential neighborhood in northwest Wichita. Those who grew up

miles away with her husband and six kids, who make the commute across town on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights, preserving family tradition. Heiman has decided the trip across town is worth it, but what about other young legacy families like hers? What’s there to keep them coming to Pleasant Valley? For PVUMC Pastor, Nathan Stanton, it’s a daunting challenge: “My whole white church could walk out on me if I don’t play it right.”

in the church in the 1950s, ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s have memories of traditional middle class families living here, mostly white, like most of Kansas. Today the church membership remains mostly the same, but the neighborhood is vastly different. Children have grown and left to raise their own families in newer and more vibrant neighborhoods, leaving their aging parents behind. In their place, Hispanic families are moving in, drawn by low-cost housing, a growing Spanish-speaking business district and nearby industrial jobs, like the local meat packing plant where you can find work without needing to speak English. The resulting demographic changes are evident at Cloud Elementary, the nearest school, where more than half the students are Hispanic and 97 percent are on the federal free and reduced lunch program.

Carrie Heiman and Pastor Stanton started seriously wrestling with the issue in August 2010, as members of a team from Pleasant Valley United Methodist that went through the KLC’s Leadership & Faith program. “They gave us the tools to begin discussing things very quickly,” Carrie says. When KLC facilitators challenged the team to identify and address a need outside the church walls, they immediately thought of the Hispanics living near the church. First, the team did a survey, asking both church members and people in the surrounding community to complete the sentence, “When you think about your community, the thing that concerns me the most is. . .” Surveys were distributed to the congregation, as well as nearby fire departments, doctors’ offices and other public places, with the question worded in English, Spanish and Vietnamese because there is also a significant Asian immigrant population nearby.

The effect on Pleasant Valley Church is profound, its original membership base is shrinking – literally dying off. “I sang at a couple of funerals last week where we lost two of the long-time members of the church,” says Carrie Heiman, who grew up at Pleasant Valley. Her great-grandparents and grandparents were founding members. Her parents still attend; and live nearby. But Heiman lives 10 1. 4.

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Another L&F team member asked her why she found it upsetting. The person talked about how that made her feel, that she felt insecure she couldn’t communicate with this person and she felt burdened she would have to work harder to get her job done because of the communication barrier. She was intimidated by the cultural differences. Eventually the woman admitted she was able to work well with her Hispanic coworker. “That’s not how her story started, but that’s how it ended. You could tell from her body language that she relaxed and we were able to continue the dialogue. It was a great moment!” With the groundwork laid, people within the church began to consider how to address the sense of vulnerability reported by the Hispanic community. “This led us to think about how safety lies in being able to communicate in English and ask for what you need, or feeling empowered in the workplace and able to stand up for yourself,” recalls Pastor Stanton.

Pleasant Valley UMC is located in northwest Wichita. The congregation is reaching out to the Hispanic neighborhood around the church by offering free English as a Second Language classes. L&F team members settled on English instruction as a way to address residents’ concerns about safety.

With that in mind, Stanton says a program at nearby St. Paul’s United Methodist Church caught his attention. A couple of American missionaries with a background of planting churches in Mexico were teaching Hispanics how to speak English.

The results reflected a split between the concerns of church members and the surrounding neighborhood. “There was a real disparity,” recalls Pastor Stanton. Church members were most concerned with preserving church traditions, while people from the neighborhood cited safety. “A lot of the Hispanic comments had to do specifically with desire for shelter from a tornado and fear of violence and drugs,” says Stanton.

Stanton asked the missionaries, Tim and Jennifer Jepsen, to bring the program to Pleasant Valley. With financial support from the Congregational New Church Development and Hispanic United Methodist Ministries (two sources of Methodist funding), Jennifer Jepsen, a former school teacher, was hired to run the ESL program while Tim Jepsen, a pastor, was assigned to plant a new Hispanic church.

As the church began to confront fears of changes that could result from reaching out to the community, a pivotal moment came during a congregational meeting in which a member was given an opportunity to speak to loss.

Success of the program would depend on congregation participation. Jennifer predicted she would need at least 40 volunteers to pull it all off. The program has many parts, for starters, families are invited to share a meal so that families won’t have to worry about preparing dinner before coming to class.

Heiman tells the story of how a woman in the congregation spoke up about how she didn’t like not being able to communicate at work with someone who spoke Spanish. “That made this person really angry. She was all, go learn English. It’s not my job to try to communicate with you, you need to go and learn English.”

Pleasant Valley engaged nearly 1 in 4 church members in its program to teach English to Hispanic families. Volunteers prepared meals, served as tutors and led activities for children. Here members of the congregation pose with participants.

80 Hispanic people a week. Most stayed for worship after the lessons. In its second year, the program drew twice that many.

An hour of language instruction follows dinner with church volunteers working with no more than a handful of adult students. During the hour of instruction, a nursery is provided for children ages 4 and under; children 5 and up participate in what is called Kidz Club with activities that include science experiments, art projects and music.

As intended by design, the program forged positive relationships between long-time church members and their language learner guests. Tim Jepsen puts it this way, “Familiarity doesn’t breed contempt – it breeds content.”

Afterward, those who want to stay are invited to participate in a brief religious service with songs and scripture.

The Jepsen’s cite as an example one man who initially wanted to volunteer in the kitchen preparing meals “I made him be one of the teachers, and he didn’t have a great attitude about it,” Jennifer Jepsen says. A couple weeks into the program, the man made a confession. “He called me and said, ‘You know I used to be one of these folks who said round ‘em all up and ship them back to their country,’ “recalls Tim Jepsen. The man became transformed by a new friendship with his Hispanic student.

Pastor Stanton said the response to the call for volunteers surprised him. “The Jepsens were hoping for 40, but we ended up with over 60 volunteers, which right now is over one fourth of our worshipping community,” Stanton says. Launched in September 2011, the ESL program was an immediate success, drawing more than

“Familiarity doesn’t breed contempt – it breeds content.” 7.

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church. He is a regular at English and Spanish services on Sunday, part of an influx of Hispanics whose presence at worship services has slowed the overall slide in attendance at Pleasant Valley. Seeing so many lives transformed persuades Pastor Stanton he’s done the right thing. It didn’t come without costs – he had to make choices. In the name of priorities, he eliminated a popular contemporary worship service, a decision that cost him members who left for other Methodist churches in town. He explains, “The loss of the service has impacted my leadership here. Some people are taking a step back and saying, ‘Is this my church anymore?’ But the church is coming around. More are saying, ‘This is why we’re here! The mission field has come to us; we don’t have to go all over the world. It’s right here.’”

Church volunteers run a “Kidz Club” for the children of Hispanic families who come to weekly tutoring sessions. More than 160 people came each week during Fall 2012.

Fourth-generation member Carrie Heiman understands some find the changes difficult, but she sees people doing the hard work to keep the church moving in the right direction: “I don’t have that doom and gloom sense that it’s going to die. I might have felt that 10 years ago, but I don’t now.” She credits the Kansas Leadership Center with providing her and others with the skills to tackle difficult problems: “I am so thankful.”

Becky Beal, a church member and ESL volunteer teacher, says she used to resent Hispanic immigrants, when she lived in south Texas, surrounded by people with whom she couldn’t communicate. But Beal says she was transformed by learning the story of an ESL student, a mother jailed for trying to sneak into the United States with her young son, fleeing a drug cartel that murdered her husband and another son. “People don’t understand because they have never heard these stories,” she says.

The church planted signs advertising the ESL class on its lawn and around the neighborhood.

With anecdote after anecdote, it quickly becomes clear how outreach to the Hispanic community is providing far more than language skills. Consider Sergio Torres, who lived in Wichita for 30 years without learning English. He wasn’t necessarily looking to learn when Pleasant Valley church members showed up at his door with a flyer promoting the program. But he was looking for God to help him overcome the alcoholism he feared would kill him. Torres has since been baptized and joined the

JERRY KARR In his own words: Americus FUMC

“I am from Americus. I grew up in a large family, the oldest of eight. I graduated from Southern Illinois University where I studied economics and agricultural economics. I served 18 years in the state Legislature and held many roles in community organizations. I had a lifetime of experience in leadership roles, but not until the Kansas Leadership Center did I appreciate the importance of Engaging Unusual Voices. In traditional rural communities, you don’t get a lot of unusual voices.The same people usually end up at the table.” “In May 2011, a tornado hit Reading, a little town 17 miles to the west. Half the housing and all of the businesses were gone. So I took some of these things I had learned at KLC and tried to find leadership in a town that had been severely hit by disaster. Suddenly I was working with a range of people I had never worked with before.” “The disaster propelled new people into leadership roles.You had to decide whether to become a ghost town and walk away from it. Half of your population is gone. Your schools will probably close. But we found people who were there all along. We have the man who grades the roads, who lost his house, who is now the mayor. A lady who teaches middle school in Lebo suddenly became co-chair of the long-term planning committee.They were right there all the time.”

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INTERVENES SKILLFULLY Church

by Engaging Right Partners

INDEPENDENCE Getting Children Moving

They weren’t looking to transform early education across the region, but that is what happened when members of the First United Methodist Church in Independence took up a challenge to improve the health of their community.

What they discovered took them far beyond concern about obesity: 60 percent of children entering kindergarten were showing up with developmental delays in their gross and fine motor skills, which involve the use of large and small muscle groups to control such actions as sitting, walking, grasping and writing. A lack of activity during the preschool years was stunting development that would affect their ability to succeed in school.

It started in August 2009, when the church sent members through the KLC’s Leadership & Faith program, including two former teachers, Sandy Nelson and Jana Shaver, who gravitated toward the needs of children.

FUMC INDEPENDENCE

Directed by KLC to identify and address a community health issue, Jana Shaver, a state school board member and long-time educator, wanted to address childhood obesity. “Our group decided to focus on early childhood and the need for physical activity in that age group,” recalls Shaver. The team energized others to help diagnose the situation. “We added kindergarten teachers, we added the school nurse, we added the school food services director, we added a physical therapist,” says Dean Hayse, a team member. “The people who joined us were critical to get us to where we needed to be.” First United Methodist Church of Independence collaborated with educators and social workers to provide a program that boosts child brain development through increased physical activity.

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“The more we read, the more we talked, the clearer it became that we wanted to focus on helping preschoolers be ready for school, especially in being physically ready for the disciplines of school ... sitting up in a chair, sitting still for a time, moving hands and arms across center, having good hand-eye coordination, being able to move the head without moving the body, etc.” The team started by looking at what could be done at the church’s own preschool. They asked Nancy Estes, director of the preschool for the past 24 years to join their team. She recognized the problem. “You see a lot of kids struggling; they can’t hold a crayon right, or they can’t hop on one foot, because if they are in a day care situation that doesn’t play with them, then they are not going to know those skills.” Estes suggested the team also invite her sister, Jeanne Fiscus, an early childhood consultant with a job that puts her in contact with all of the day cares and preschools in a five-county region. Hayse saw her as a godsend. “Without her connections, we wouldn’t have been able to pull all of the parts together to make it successful.” Fiscus’s job as an outreach coordinator for ChildCare Aware of Southeast Kansas, a state-supported agency, is to improve the quality of daycare and preschools by offering providers support. In her work, she’s seen the failure of parents and providers to get children involved in active play.

The church’s preschool uses bouncy balls and hula hoops to help build children’s core muscles, a type of play that is essential to bolstering physical development necessary for success in school.

“The kindergarten teacher understood that children who had not developed certain muscular strengths would spend their energy trying to stay in their seats, seeing what was on the board, keeping their place in a book ... and have little energy left over for academic learning,” recalls Marilyn Gregory, a former team member who served with her husband Jack as FUMC Independence pastors at the time.

“We’re seeing more kids sitting in front of televisions. It’s cheaper to do it and we’re kind of a poverty corner,” she says of southeast Kansas. “Many can’t afford the play equipment children need and not enough take the time to play with children, either,” she says.

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In the three years since they started, the team has brought in a national expert on the relationship between physical activity and brain development, Athena Oden. They held workshops that introduced nearly 200 educators, day care providers and preschool teachers to Oden’s Ready Bodies, Learning Minds curriculum, a collection of strategies and activities to promote motor-sensory development. With the money they made off the workshops – offered to teachers for continuing education credit – the team was able to purchase play equipment designed to promote gross and fine motor skill development. Then they assembled 10 kits of play equipment, wrote a guide for its proper use, and began a lending program. Area preschools and day care providers can check the kits out once a month, at no cost. The local elementary school, Eisenhower, added a ”motor lab,” where team member Jayne Mattix works with all kindergarteners on developmental skills. (An elementary school in nearby Coffeyville did the same.) Eisenhower Principal Brad Carroll credits Mattix with “hounding him -- in a good way” to put in a motor lab. With the motor lab now in its second year, Carroll is glad he did. “The kindergarten staff sees a direct link between student progress in the motor lab and academic improvement across the board with our kindergarten students.” Carroll takes pride that Independence is a leader in addressing the relationship between physical activity and brain development in young children. “I believe we are the only school in our area to put this much emphasis -- or any emphasis at all -- on this learning strategy,” he says.

At Eisenhower Elementary in Independence, all kindergarteners spend time in the motor lab doing activities designed to promote gross and fine motor skills. Two years ago, 60 percent of children coming into kindergarten were behind in these skills.

“When you look at what the team did, ‘success’ doesn’t seem like a strong enough word.”

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very good at what we do, don’t need many folks to do it – and have the right folks,” he says. Though the team clearly met two objectives of the Leadership & Faith program – improving community health and increasing civic leadership capacity – it’s not clear that the team did anything to revitalize the church. But maybe that doesn’t matter. “We did a lot of good,” says Nelson. “Revitalizing congregations is hard work,” says Gregory, now a part-time associate pastor at Lenexa United Methodist Church. “I don't know any recipe for making it happen. I don't even know how to measure vitality in a congregation, though I see the conference is asking for reports of attendance, giving, professions of faith, people served. Is Independence First more vital because of Leadership and Faith? Maybe. Have some people grown as leaders, both in the church and in the community? Certainly.”

The Leadership & Faith team made the Ready Bodies, Learning Minds curriculum (left) available to educators from 25 different communities. The team created the booklet on the right to go with its 10 kits of play equipment it loans out to area preschools and daycare providers. The booklet explains how and why to use the equipment.

The transformation in early childhood education brought about by the Leadership & Faith training became well-known to educators in the area and was frequently mentioned in the local newspaper. Yet curiously it received little notice from the congregation.

DIAGNOSING SITUATION

Hayse joined the church council two months ago and when he introduced himself and mentioned the work of the team, some council members had no idea what he was talking about. “There was one person who may have understood at one time there was a request for equipment for the preschool and that once again the church responded generously” Hayse said. “What they didn’t know as a governing body was that we had identified this need among the young people in our community for fine and gross motor skill development. They didn’t know that Leadership & Faith was the committee that actually developed that.” Hayse doesn’t blame them for not knowing. The team never really tried to engage the general congregation. It found the skill sets it needed outside the congregation and raised money from grants and workshop fees. “We have become

Leads to improved internal dynamics

For more than a decade, East Heights United Methodist Church saw its congregation shrink as internal dynamics caused members of the church to lose ownership. Participants in the Kansas Leadership Center’s Leadership & Faith program say a better understanding of adaptive challenges helped them begin to turn things around.

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“They taught us not to be afraid to ask a hard question or to ask someone to do something they might not normally do. “ “Since January 2010 we've undergone some pretty transformational internal structural changes that I don’t know that we would have had the strength to undertake but for the program,” says Bill Robison, a Wichita lawyer and chairman of EHUMC’s staff-parish relations committee.

So when the committees that stopped functioning were made up of people from all of those services, we lost a lot of touch points. There was a lack of communication across the congregation that we believe contributed to the sense that we were declining.”

Robison was one of five people on EHUMC’s L&F team to go through the KLC training during sessions held in January and August 2010. Since that time, three team members left – two moved from the area and a pastor on the team was reassigned – a situation that inhibited EHUMC from carrying out the charge to identify and address a community need. “I felt like we didn’t meet what we were supposed to do by not having a mission project,” says Kathy Lefler, the other remaining L&F team member. But like Robison, she believes the KLC training played an important role in the transformation now taking place in the church.

Team members also examined their own behaviors, applying new KLC insights. Learning how to raise the heat was the best lesson for Lefler, a church member and long-time director of lay ministries. “They taught us not to be afraid to ask a hard question or to ask someone to do something they might not normally do. That was really helpful to me because I was always taught to be really nice and polite and let people offer first. “

EAST HEIGHTS

“I think that our congregation – right now after sort of struggling in the wilderness for probably 10 years – I think we’re poised to have a new identity in the community, and I attribute a lot of that back to our participation in the program.” In a week-long session, the five team members began to diagnose the situation facing their church. They began to identify a number of internal structural problems contributing to a lack of communication and ultimately, a lack of engagement. As Robison explains “Committees had stopped functioning. The church council stopped meeting. The congregation had gotten siloed. We developed into three different churches, in terms of what services people attended, physically separated from one another: an 8:45 service in the chapel, a 9:45 service in the gym, and an 11 o’clock service in the sanctuary.

East Heights United Methodist Church in Wichita used its KLC training to tackle adaptive challenges within the congregation, increasing communication among members and launching an effort to engage the neighborhood.

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ENERGIZING OTHERS, By

The prayer ministry began actively praying for people outside the church – even going so far as to regularly walk the neighborhoods around the church, praying publicly for the well-being of the neighbors. Over spring break, the children’s ministry sent youth to do crafts with residents of nursing homes and play bingo at the Veterans home. In August 2012, the church held its biggest community event so far, what Robinson calls the church’s “coming out party” – a neighborhood block party complete with free hot dogs and snow cones, carnival games, clowns and door prizes.

Robison says he benefitted from learning to manage self “I am prone to make my mind up and then speak passionately to convince others that my approach is the right approach.” Now Robison says he tries to let others work through issues and not simply drive his perspective through. Following the KLC program, team members led an effort to restructure church staff and reorient toward a more outward focus. Lefler started a new job as church communications director, revamped the newsletter and worked to keep web content fresh. Events once held for church members were opened to the community.

“It’s still in process,” he says, “but I think we are getting closer to a point where our internal house is in order and we are getting to the brink of being a very vital institution.”

Church Tackles a Problem of Child Care

Good jobs are scarce in the rural southeast Kansas town of Eureka. The oil boom days that built the town are long over. The Eureka Downs horse track, a major tourism draw since 1872, shut down two years ago. Eureka’s population has decreased 10 percent over the past decade. But against these odds, Eureka United Methodist Church is finding new life and renewed purpose.

The conversation gave Countryman the chance to explain a situation school officials were struggling over, how to accommodate parents and children on days when school starts late to allow for teacher in-service trainings. Late starts occur once a month – roughly nine to 10 times a school year. “With the majority of our kids, the parents have to work out of town,” she explains. “That requires them to leave home early to get to work on time. Many parents are working class, in jobs where employers may not accommodate a monthly request to come in to work late.”

“In about a year’s time, we went from being called a dying church to being a very active church, well-known and well-recognized in the community,” recalls Jan Stephens, a long-time EUMC member. Change was driven by two things – the arrival of a new pastor and a new sense of empowerment among church members created by their participation in the KLC’s Leadership & Faith program. “We had the training that helped us know how to be more active participants in our church,” Stephens explains.

Jean Groendes, EUMC member on the KLC team, said the problem immediately resonated when she heard about it. “All I could hear was

EUREKA UMC

In August 2010, Eureka United Methodist Church sent a team of six members through the Kansas Leadership Center’s Leadership & Faith Transforming Communities program, where they were challenged to identify and meet a community health need. Instructed in the importance of “energizing others,” one of four core competencies taught by KLC, team members reached out to people outside the church.

In a survey of Leadership & Faith: Transforming Community participants conducted in September 2012, these KLC concepts were identified as most helpful. The larger the concept appears here, the more frequently it was mentioned.

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Casey Countryman, elementary school counselor, remembers the first phone call she received. “They wanted to know how they could meet the needs of the kids… whether they could serve some sort of breakfast or something,” Countryman said.

Eureka United Methodist Church increased members’ involvement in the community when it launched a program and events aimed at helping families with young children.

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“We don’t preach to them, we don’t teach them lessons, but they are well aware that they are inside the walls of a church – and if they have a positive experience inside the walls of a church, I consider that evangelism in the highest degree,” Baker says.

“I know parents have liked this service as many scramble to find sitters for that short time frame,” says Robin Wunderlick, editor of the Eureka Herald. The Greenwood County Health Department also took notice. “I’m really impressed that the Methodists chose to take on such an endeavor. It was pretty amazing,” said Deina Rockhill, county health nurse, adding that the church often approaches her with offers of help. In turn, Rockhill occasionally looks to the church to provide help to specific families or individuals in need.

Members of Eureka United Methodist Church say community outreach efforts aimed at children and families led to a significant increase in the number of children attending services.

a.m. for breakfast and fun activities. A school bus would pick the kids up at 9:40 a.m. to bring them to school by 10.

my former coworkers in my head going, ‘Do you know how hard it is to get before school care?’” Ken Baker, who became EUMC’s new pastor in late 2011, sums it up: “Basically the parents have three choices: pawn the kids off on a relative who doesn’t work, stay at home and jeopardize their job, lose pay, or leave the children home by themselves, which is never a preferable or safe choice.”

Using donated food, materials and time, the Leadership & Faith team recruited additional volunteers and launched the program in January 2011. “The first time we had only 15, but now we average about 30 per time,” says Ann Johnson, a L&F team member.

But Baker understands the predicament facing families. Nearly 70 percent of the students at the Eureka elementary school are classified as economically disadvantaged.

To bolster their local partnerships in civic work, the Eureka United Methodist Church hosted a series of five regional KLC training sessions in the spring of 2012. The sessions drew an additional two dozen people from Eureka from churches and organizations beyond EUMC.

Baker and others on the L&F team believe the exposure is having an effect. This year’s Vacation Bible School, which fed kids a nightly meal and educated them in the evenings – drew 100 kids.

The efforts don’t stop there. Eureka United Methodist Church aspires to become the main church on the main street – a place familiar to children and adults throughout the community. To this end, the church has taken to hosting block parties, closing off the street to put on a carnival last summer and a barbecue and concert this year. In a town with limited activities, the events are a big hit.

“We’ve got kids now that think church activities are part of life,” says Groendes, a L&F team member. But even as they focus outside their church, the L&F team is seeing dramatic changes within – signs that point to a revitalized church. More people are showing up on Sundays and leaving more money in the collection plates. The men’s and women’s groups are drawing bigger turnouts. More young families are bringing children – with 15 to 20 coming down for the “children’s moment” during services.

Baker says outreach activities like the Great Late Start and the block parties need not be overtly religious.

By using the initiative to help, the Eureka United Methodist Church has met a huge need for the community, says Countryman, the school counselor. “The kids have some place to go where we know they will be safe. They won’t miss the bus and they will be fed.”

“A lot of these people, if they have to call in and say they have to come in a couple of hours late, that may be something close to losing a job over.” After brainstorming together, Countryman and the Eureka team members came up with an idea for what they could call the Great Late Start Program. On late-start mornings, the church would make itself available to parents to drop kids off as early as 7:30

Pastor Baker credits the Great Late Start program and other community-based work. Even for members not directly involved, “it becomes part of their identity that this is one of the things their church is doing, that they are supporting with their gifts and their offerings,” he said.

The program’s success raised the church’s profile in the community. The local newspaper, The Eureka Herald, carried articles before and after every Great Late Start event, alerting parents to the availability of the program and reporting on the turnout afterward.

“We’ve got kids now that think church activities are part of life.” 18.

To raise money to support its Great Late Start children’s program and other events for the community, Eureka United Methodist Church hosts community dinners.

Adds Stephens. “Before they belonged to the church and they came most Sunday mornings, but now they are coming several times a week maybe, and they are excited about things that are going on beyond their doors.”

Their backpacks lined up ready for school, children in Eureka spend the early morning eating breakfast and playing games at Eureka United Methodist Church’s Great Late Start program.

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UNUSUAL VOICES provide insight into an impoverished community

HILL

CHAPEL Healing a Neighborhood

Rising up from a wide open field on the east side of Wichita, Chapel Hill Fellowship United Methodist Church is a rough-hewn structure that resembles a barn – a visual homage to a carpenter’s humble roots.

dozen Chapel Hill members attended the KLC’s Leadership & Faith training session. Challenged to show civic leadership through community involvement, Chapel Hill’s L&F team began considering where the congregation might make an impact.

Members are predominantly affluent white professionals who populate upscale houses nearby, a location preferred by families choosing nearby private and suburban schools. In a community where the median home price is $125,000, homes here sell for 3 to 4 times that much.

“Planeview just started getting named as that place,” Pastor Gannon recalls. “One person said, ‘Do you realize we have a neighborhood that is largely untouched? It’s the most impoverished neighborhood in our city. The idea just started to jell. We said, ‘we think we’re supposed to do something with Planeview.’”

Such facts are noteworthy when you consider that Chapel Hill – when asked to engage the community -- chose to focus on Planeview, a poverty-stricken neighborhood nine miles away. Here mostly Hispanic and Asian immigrant families crowd into homes built 70 years ago as temporary housing for wartime aircraft production workers. Home values hover in the $20,000 range, but most people here rent. Their children attend public schools, including Colvin Elementary and Jardine Middle School, where nearly all students qualify for free or reduced school lunch. Pastor Jeff Gannon says the idea to do something in Planeview arose in August 2009 when a half

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Certain they felt called by God to do something in Planeview – but mindful of KLC instruction to begin with no assumptions – Gannon says the team developed a set of parameters. “Number one, we can’t do it alone. Number two, this is not a quick fix. Number three, if we’re not going to make a 10-year commitment, let’s not commit at all, because false hope doesn’t help anybody.” Team member Charlie Schwarz took the lead in gathering information and building relationships. “When you work with people in extreme poverty, trust is the big thing,” Schwarz says. Taking time

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CHAPEL HILL

early interest in improving the neighborhood’s appearance by fixing dilapidated buildings, the social worker explained that would increase rent and leave fewer affordable places to live. Partnerships developed by Schwarz and others from Chapel Hill have yielded dramatic results. In September 2011, a new six-room health clinic opened, built with donated money and volunteer time. Foundations and grants contributed more than $400,000. Architects and engineers donated professional services. A group of Methodist volunteers did construction and painting. The new clinic replaced a tiny two-room clinic that had operated for more than a decade out of Planeview’s Brookside United Methodist Church. When Schwarz first learned the clinic had received a grant and was planning a small expansion, he asked the staff to think bigger: “I asked, ‘Can you dream?’ They said, ‘well we thought about putting in a six-exam room clinic then we could have a fulltime doctor. We’ve got some plans.’ I am expecting some architectural plans and it’s all hand-drawn. I said, ‘Well do you have any architectural plans, and they said, ‘No we can’t afford that.’ So I said, tell me about the concept of six exam rooms. ‘Well, that way we could put in a lab, and a full-time physician, as well as a PA.’ I said, man that would do a lot for Planeview.”

Chapel Hill Fellowship United Methodist Church of Wichita has made a 10-year commitment to the impoverished neighborhood of Planeview in south Wichita. Church members have already helped build a new health clinic, bring a soup kitchen and provide supplies and support to neighborhood school children.

to get to know people and build a foundation of trust was critical, he says. “Our goal is to be down here for 10 years to develop trust and relationships with people. Every month we have a meeting in Planeview just to throw around ideas.” That monthly meeting is called the Planeview Transformation Coalition where Chapel Hill members meet with residents, social workers, city government workers, police officers, school principals and landlords. The meetings embody the concepts of “energizing others” and “engaging unusual voices,” creating opportunities for L & F team members to replace superficial observations and assumptions with informed understanding. “We work with a social worker who just likes to slap you upside the head and say, ‘What are you thinking?’” says Schwarz. When the team showed

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Now open for more than a year, the clinic serves up to 40 patients a day, mostly those who live within walking distance. The new construction includes space for an eye clinic and possibly a dental clinic, two things Schwarz is still working on. ”Having the beautiful, expanded clinic was huge,” says Janet Johnson, a city administrator who runs a satellite City Hall office in Planeview. “I think it served as a catalyst because shortly thereafter, Charlie was able to convince the Lord’s Diner to come serve this neighborhood, and then the Catholic Charities food pantry and the Guadalupe Clinic came.”

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“Kids do not have to go hungry anymore in Planeview because of these partnerships.” For more than a decade, The Lord’s Diner -- Wichita’s “soup kitchen” – has served a free meal every night to the homeless and hungry at its downtown location. With more than 5,500 volunteers and abundant financial support, The Lord’s Diner began scouting for a second location in 2007. First opened in May 2011, the Planeview site now feeds an average 230 people per night – 30 to 40 percent of them children. The Catholic Diocese, sponsor of the diner, has since opened a food pantry and health clinic adjacent to the meal site. The pantry serves 1,400 families a month.

“Frankly, I am very honest about the fact that some members are challenged by our involvement in Planeview. There are some who choose not to participate. And that’s fine,” says Gannon. “I would never force anyone to do that. We’ve had people walk out of poverty training. That says to me we’re on the right track.” Gannon shares a story about taking 25 people to visit Principal Atherly: “She will look outside her window and point you to a home that is literally the size of my office and six families live there.

“Kids do not have to go hungry anymore in Planeview because of these partnerships,” says Pastor Gannon. The benefits to children go beyond health care and food, says Lura Jo Atherly, principal of Jardine middle school. “It is the quiet and steady support offered that truly impacts our community,” says Atherly. “Volunteer to work with teachers in classrooms, provide snacks during state testing time, basketball shoes for student athletes and holiday meals for needy families.” As much as anything, Atherly says she appreciates the effort of Chapel Hill to breakdown stereotypes. The church hosts what it calls the Planeview Immersion Experience, where it takes members on a three hour tour of Planeview, showing them the neighborhood and introducing them to people like Atherly and Johnson. For Gannon, it’s a part of the ministry that is every bit as essential as serving the poor: breaking down presumptions people in the congregation may have about the poor.

Pastor Jeff Gannon stands in front of a mural in Planeview, in this screenshot from a video he presented to the congregation in August 2009, urging members to become partners with people living in the impoverished neighborhood.

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serving meals at the Diner. Those who get directly involved are transformed, says Schwarz. “When people put the time and effort to come over here and volunteer, it really changes their perception about what is valuable in life,” he says. Hundreds more church members have been generous, purchasing school supplies and helping to fund a part-time pastor at the Brookside church that housed the original health clinic. With just 25-30 members, Brookside can no longer support itself. “Now there are times when we need to spend money. But I don’t want that to be our easy way out,” says Gannon. “Because when you are on this side of town, it’s a lot easier to write a check then it is to spend time getting to know a person who is different.”

L&F team member Charlie Schwarz describes the construction of the new six-room health clinic in Planeview, behind him.

She will tell you how they are very strong supporters of education, how they don’t count down the days for school to end but for school to start. The kids say to her, ’we don’t want this school year to end. We want to keep learning. Can we come to school in the summer?’ A grown man started to cry when he heard that.”

Steve Coen, another Chapel Hill L & F Team member believes Chapel Hill’s involvement in Planeview energizes members and contributes to the congregation’s tremendous growth. “We have a lot of people with big hearts and they want to do something.”Giving people something meaningful to do is drawing them in,” he said. “A lot of people come because we’re being progressive and trying to serve the community.”

Gannon wants to see more of these moments. So far, a relatively small number of members from the congregation have been directly involved in Planeview, mostly in the coalition or as volunteers

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SYLVIA KVACIK, In her own words: Minneapolis FUMC

August 2010 was the beginning of a big change in my life—and it all started with the Kansas Leadership Center’s Leadership & Faith conference. I had been to many leadership events, so when my pastor asked me to attend KLC, I thought it would be nice to have a few days away but assumed I would sit bored through “the usual.” Instead, I had an experience for which I will always be grateful. It’s true that the magic happens outside of that oh-so-comfortable comfort zone. Our Leadership & Faith team formed a community coalition which brought school policy changes and an increased community awareness relating to the harrowing problem of synthetic drugs.Though our original group eventually fell apart, it is likely that we energized others to take on new challenges in our community, as several new groups have formed and they are making a significant difference. On a personal level, my life has been forever changed since my experience with the Kansas Leadership Center.While I still struggle with a wavering self-confidence, I know that my ideas have value -- and that people are listening. I have also become a Faith Facilitator for KLC, teaching lessons of leadership to more people in my area. My hope is that this is only the beginning.

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DIAGNOSIS, Despite major effort at

one team never makes it to next step

FUMC LAWRENCE

Four times a year, the church serves as an overnight shelter to homeless families, putting cots in the fellowship hall and Sunday school classrooms. It’s a big commitment for a congregation heavily weighted toward retirees. Members must make peace with the presence of mentally ill and the occasional encounter with someone washing up in the bathrooms. But this kind of community connection is crucial to the vitality of his church, Tom Brady, Senior pastor believes – and the primary reason he is an enthusiastic supporter of the KLC’s Leadership & Faith program. For a number of reasons, no KLC-driven initiative ever got off the ground here. Brady says he lacked the foresight to bring more people to the sessions; he only invited a couple. “I didn’t know what it was,” he recalls.

First United Methodist Church in Lawrence takes an active interest in serving the homeless, hosting a free breakfast twice a week. Church members spent weeks diagnosing the needs of the homeless, but never put any new ideas into action.

His L & F team invested significant time in trying to diagnose local problems, gathering and reviewing data, then hosting a series of after church meetings that drew more than three dozen people. “It never got to the point where somebody said, ‘I’m going to make this happen.’ It was all idea gathering.” Brady says he got weary of the process. “I’m a doer…I wanted to know, when are we gonna start doing something?”

Ministering to the homeless in downtown Lawrence – a college town of 88,000 known for its liberal bent and abundant social services – is a big part of the identity of First United Methodist Church. Twice a week it hosts the Jubilee Café, serving a free hot breakfast to up to 100 people each morning.

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FUMC Lawrence hosts the “Jubilee Café” twice a week, serving a free breakfast to the homeless population downtown.

The intent of the KLC Leadership & Faith program – to bring vitality to congregations through active community engagement – is a worthy goal, Brady says. “It’s aimed exactly at what would make this church more vital, which is making a difference in the community and making a difference in lives of people. But we’re also doing a lot of that already.”

But Brady says diagnosing was valuable; he discovered that he lacked an understanding of the homeless and what their primary needs are. “We thought we were doing the right thing giving them food, clothing and a place to sleep. What we learned was we need to get to know the people we are serving and hear from them about their needs, not just assume that we already know what they are. That became our project – to build relationships with people in our community that we want to serve, and that’s where we kind of left off.” Brady says it’s possible the others on his team were waiting on him to initiate something, which he didn’t. “I had my plate pretty full at the time.“ At the time of the training, Brady was preaching every Sunday at two locations, driving back and forth between the flagship church downtown and a second church six miles west.

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Pastor Tom Brady

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VALERIE BLACK, In her own words: Dellrose UMC, Wichita

“I am the youth pastor at Dellrose United Methodist Church in Wichita and I would have to say “Managing Self” is a KLC skill that really helped me. I have learned not to take things personally.That used to bother me. I also learned not to be triggered by things that usually set me off, like people not showing up or doing things they are supposed to do. Instead of getting upset, I guess I have been giving the work back, putting it back on them. It has been really important to me to not put my personal feelings on things, but to really allow the youth the opportunity for their voices to be heard.”

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DICK HOLDMAN, In his own words:

Church of the Resurrection West, Olathe

I do consulting in leadership development, so leadership training wasn’t new to me – the four competencies were. Learning the core competencies taught by the Kansas Leadership Center has caused me to more actively consider what I do, why I do it, how I do it. Diagnose situation, energize others, manage self and intervene skillfully – I go through the four competencies rapidly when I am making decisions. It has helped me to manage myself much better in both my personal and professional life. The skills are so useful, so adaptable to just about any type of leadership situation, whether secular or faith-based, that I have changed my own consulting leadership curriculum to utilize the best portion of the KLC competencies. I had to look at that really carefully knowing it would be a drastic change from what I had taught some of my clients for many years. So far it has proven to be positive, but at the same time I can see pushback coming, which is expected. I think the notion of raising the heat is new to them.The old style in group dynamics was more about keeping everyone somewhat happy and on a positive flow, rather than pushing them to make in-depth, conscious, purposeful decisions. The idea of intentionally raising the heat continues to be one of the harder aspects for any group that utilizes a team atmosphere to get used to.The challenge is getting them to understand this as a better decision-making process.You get stronger, more sustainable solutions when you go through this process.

In a survey of Leadership & Faith: Transforming Community participants conducted in September 2012, respondents identified the above challenges as the most difficult. The larger the word appears here, the more frequently it was mentioned.

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UNUSUAL VOICES Reveal food access problem

HIAWATHA Seeking out the Unheard

Like many rural towns, Hiawatha is a place where people are deeply rooted to place, but not necessarily each other. Until recently, social circles in this county seat have had little reason to overlap, even among those who have attended the same church for decades.

that members of HUMC have made dramatic progress on since the group first attended the KLC’s Leadership & Faith program in January 2011. Taking the instruction to “Engage Unusual Voices” to heart, the Hiawatha UMC team has for the first time brought together dozens of disparate demographic groups and individuals around a common goal – increasing everyone’s access to healthy food.

Divisions are driven mostly – but not entirely – by geography. Located in the northeastern corner of the state, Hiawatha sits about a dozen miles from borders belonging to Nebraska and Missouri.

HIAWATHA UMC

Gene Hillyer, a HUMC member and fourth-generation Brown County farmer, says he has neighbors who live only a couple of miles away that he sees once a year at harvest time at the grain elevator. “That has always kind of struck me -- how we can be so close, but not really,” Hillyer says. Surrounding Brown County are three Indian reservations – the Kickapoo, the Iowa and the Sac and Fox . And though Native Americans make up 9 percent of the county population, HUMC Pastor Randy Quinn says you never see them in the community. “They are almost always overlooked.” Members of Hiawatha United Methodist Church aggressively sought unusual voices as they diagnosed needs in their community. They were surprised to discover poor families and seniors living without access to healthy food.

Quinn views people living in isolation from one another as the biggest challenge facing both congregation and community. It’s a cultural dynamic that presents its own adaptive challenge – and one 31.

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has just three grocery stores located within its 572 square miles, but more than 100 families living more than a mile from a store with no access to a car.

At the same time, the group also launched an investigation phase, creating and distributing surveys to area residents from all walks of life and eventually hosting 17 listening sessions with large and small groups of people, taking special care to seek the voices of those not often heard in community discussions – the Indian tribes and low-income people.

Many more households have only one car, which is not necessarily available to the grocery shopper. “I never would have thought that we have a whole host of people who have no transportation to get food, let alone to go to other functions,” says Smith. “I never would have thought there was a mother who walks two miles with three children just to get groceries. These things just weren’t apparent to me in my insulated world.”

Harter had ready access to the poor as a public health nurse. She interviewed people visiting her office for social services. “When I did the survey, I told them, ‘Your opinions are so important to us, and they said, ‘Wow, no one has ever asked us what we want!’“

More than 70 people came to an event called the FEAST (Food, Education, Agriculture Solutions Together) to learn about the problem of access to healthy foods and to discuss possible solutions. Here FEAST participants enjoy a locally sourced and prepared meal at Highland Community College's historic Klinefelter Farm. Photo courtesy of the Kansas Rural Center

The team gave themselves the name “Transformers.” Harter said she has never been a part of such an effective, energized group of diverse talents. She calls Hillyer and Smith the “powerhouses” – men respected, with ties to farmers, business people and the Indian tribes. Wilson, Harter, Farnen and Wolney offered professional connections to low-income families, children and the elderly.

“What they took on is something this community has needed,” marvels Pastor Quinn, who views himself as supportive but not driving the effort. “There are a variety of pieces to it – and it’s just amazing to me how it has unfolded.” From the beginning, HUMC involvement in the Leadership & Faith program was member-driven. Pastor Quinn initially wasn’t all that interested. If the purpose was to get congregations engaged in their communities, Quinn thought his church was already doing that. But Annette Wilson, a retired social worker and longtime church member, persuaded a team to go.

These diverse connections were critical to the group’s success as they sought to identify their community’s most pressing needs. “The first thing they realized was they needed a community foundation,” says Quinn. The need became apparent when the team learned Brown County had missed out on a large bequeath by an area resident – “a million-dollars large,” said Quinn -- because there was no vehicle to receive a donation for the good of the community. “They saw that immediately and had that done within six months,” he says.

Besides Hillyer and Wilson, the team includes Steve Smith, a pharmacist and longtime community activist, Karla Harter, a public health nurse, Denise Wolney, director of the local nursing home, and Debi Farnen, a former librarian.

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Hillyer, the successful, fourth-generation farmer, is struck by the irony of a lack of access to healthy foods in Kansas.

The survey asked questions addressing such things as access to healthy foods, recreational activities, elderly care, transportation and housing. Nearly 200 survey responses were collected. Listening sessions explored themes that appeared in the surveys.

“Here I was, involved in the big picture of producing corn and soybeans for the world, not thinking there may be low income families with one vehicle that goes to work and what does mom do if she needs to buy a loaf of bread or something?“

Smith says it was a process no one would have attempted if not for the emphasis placed on it by KLC. “They told us you have to gather the hard data, do the surveys and do the focus groups. We never even dreamed of doing those things.” Smith and the others were startled to discover how much they didn’t know about their own community. The biggest shocker, people without access to food. The team discovered Brown County has one of the higher rates in the state of “food insecurity” – a measure of how likely people are to worry where their next meal will come from. The problem stems from isolation as well as economics. Brown County

The discovery of the problem started a flurry of activity. Working through their newly established Community Foundation of Northeast Kansas, the team applied for and received a $25,000 planning grant from the Kansas Health Foundation to develop programs aimed at increasing access to healthy foods. Drawing on relationships developed during their listening sessions, the team recruited others including representatives from area tribes, farms, schools, and health agencies – to establish the Brown County

“They told us you have to gather the hard data, do the surveys and do the focus groups.We never even dreamed of doing those things.”

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there was no framework for them to sit down and talk to each other until the Brown Country Healthy Foods Coalition had them at the same table,” says Quinn. Using donated farmland, the HUMC Congregation plans to start a garden and donate the fresh produce to people in need. More complicated solutions are also in the works, such as adding farmer’s markets and possibly establishing a mobile farmer’s market to bring fresh foods to the different areas where people are isolated. The vision goes beyond providing food to hungry people. “I am interested in it from a business development angle to see how we might develop businesses around the whole issue of food access,” says Hillyer, who serves as president of the Hiawatha Foundation for Economic Development.

Gene Hillyer and Dan Nigel of the Hiawatha Foundation for Economic Development see an opportunity for new businesses to fill a need for access to healthy foods, perhaps through the creation of farmers markets.

Because of unique challenges facing the elderly, the Transformers and their off-shoot organizations are also exploring ways to provide isolated seniors with transportation and possibly a new senior center.

Healthy Foods Coalition. That group then began another round of surveys, looking at whether farmer’s markets or mobile food trucks could increase access to healthy foods.

Smith admitted that in 40 years of attending his church, it did not occur to him how many seniors could not get there – not until the Transformers went out of their way to hear from unusual voices. “Until it actually hits you in the face, you don’t realize how many people are now living in situations with no transportation,” he says.

In September 2012, the Transformers and the coalition drew in even more people with an event called a Community FEAST – an acronym for Food, Education, Agriculture Solutions Together. More than 70 people came to learn about the problem of access to healthy foods and to discuss possible solutions.

Though initially uninterested in the KLC’s Leadership & Faith program, Quinn said he can’t help but see how much good it’s done. “They are changing the community and they are making a difference – and that is good, this community needs that,” he says.

The event was well-attended by local ag producers, city and county officials, leaders of Indian tribes, school administrators, health departments, the community action agency, hunger relief agencies and experts from Kansas State University. Guests came from as far away as Topeka and Missouri.

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JIMMY TAYLOR, In his own words: Epworth UMC, Wichita

One of the best things to come out of my time with the Kansas Leadership Center was a challenge to work across denominational factions and begin building relationships with the other local churches in my neighborhood. (I am the pastor at Epworth UMC in Wichita.) It took months – and phone calls and rejection both in and out of my church, but we eventually teamed with a couple of churches in our neighborhood for our annual Day One/Day Two event. We had 250 people take advantage of services we offered that included free food, hygiene products, household cleaning products, haircuts, dental screening, free family portraits and more. My vision for such an event draws critique from some who are afraid such a service is only a “Band-Aid” on a greater wound. I get that. I’ll own up to the fact that we didn’t solve any obesity/crime/education issues. But for one day we encouraged people, saved them a lot of money and shared our life with people from a wide range of backgrounds, ages and races.

But has any of this made the church itself more vital? “I am not sure the congregation sees it as their ministry because I am not sure they (the Transformers) have taken the congregation along with them,” says Quinn. “But in terms of church, I think we have a lot of people who think church is a spectator sport. The Transformers are not spectators anymore.”

The team’s efforts have launched projects both large and small. The first quick fix was getting the local library to serve healthy snacks in its after school program. Then the team arranged for area farmers to supply local school cafeterias with fresh produce. “You would think that would be a no-brainer, but

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One guy told a volunteer that the event “saved his life.” I don’t know how serious his comment was, but it got to the core of what our purpose is – pointing people to the hope and life and love of Jesus Christ.

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CHURCH INTERVENES in poverty by teaching middle-class rules

GARDEN

CITY

Building Paths out of Poverty

Garden City’s population is nearly three times what it was when the current United Methodist Church was built in 1957, an increase that has changed the complexion of the community.

weren’t doing anything to help anybody out of the mess they were in,” he says. Prompted by the KLC to address an adaptive challenge facing the community, Bell and others who went through the Leadership & Faith program settled on an initiative to lift families out of poverty one by one, surrounding them with support from people in the middle class. That initiative is called “Circles of Hope.”

The transformation began in 1980 with the arrival of IBP (now Tyson), which began recruiting thousands of immigrants and international refugees to fill the high-risk, low-wage jobs at their meat-packing plant in town. Once predominantly white, today half of residents are Hispanic, while non-Hispanic whites are just 43 percent of the population. Immigrants from Southeast Asia, Burma, Somalia and Ethiopia account for much of the rest.

Church members learned about the program from other churches at the annual UMC Conference. “Somebody made the statement, ‘I think Jesus

FUMC GARDEN CITY

Changes are more pronounced in the public schools, where Hispanics are 68 percent, and non-Hispanic whites just 24 percent. School demographics also reveal the economic impact of thousands of newcomers working low-wage jobs: 72 percent of students are classified as economically disadvantaged – one and a half times the rate statewide. The presence of poverty in the community is well-known to the First United Methodist Church, which hands out roughly $25,000 a year in $50 vouchers that can be used to pay rent and utilities, or buy food. Another $30,000 a year goes to the United Methodist Mexican-American Ministries, a mission for the poor founded by the UMC in 1974, which provides medical and dental care, along with a food pantry and other social services.

First United Methodist Church of Garden City is trying to improve community health by attacking poverty one family at a time through Circles of Hope. The program enlists middle class volunteers in helping people in poverty change their lives.

But FUMC Pastor David Bell wondered if there wasn’t a better approach. “I felt like we were just putting a Band-Aid on a huge problem and we really 1.

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would say yes to this,’ and I say yes to this,” says Jane Krug, who like her husband Bob, is a retired Garden City teacher with a special passion for helping disadvantaged children and their families. Both Krugs are L&F team members actively involved in implementing Circles. Circles is designed around the ideas of educator Ruby Payne, who suggests that upward class mobility depends on knowing class rules, essentially values created by cultural experiences and expectations. A key value for the middle class is achievement, which comes with a plan-for-the-future mindset. In contrast, a key value for people in poverty is survival, which comes with a here-and-now mindset. Unrelenting financial struggle can make thoughts of the future frightening. Moving to the middle class requires learning how to plan ahead, set goals and work toward them. The Circles program helps people do that through a 12-week course followed by an 18-month period in which people going through the program are matched with a team of “allies,” volunteers that agree to meet regularly with the circle leaders and provide social and practical support. Bev Miller, L&F team member, says this approach is so much better than giving out vouchers. “By handing them things and enabling them, it helps them, yeah. It gets them through today. But this is a way for them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.” The program does include a payment. As an incentive for showing up to class each time through the 12-week program, participants receive $30 gift cards for gas or groceries; it’s a benefit that doesn’t continue through the 18-month allies period. Bell says the gift cards play a role, teaching participants their time has value.

The First United Methodist Church of Garden City is an expansive structure with a membership of 1,200 and a weekly attendance of about 400 worshipers who are mostly white, middle class.

Miller is quick to point out that the program doesn’t just help the poor. “We learn from them, too. It works both ways,” she says, noting the value

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“My intention going into this was helping my people, and for my church to be a part of this,” she says. Tristan moved to Garden City two years ago with her husband Pastor Sergio Tristan, to rehabilitate the oldest Hispanic Mission in the Kansas West Conference: Nueva Evangelica serves a Spanishspeaking congregation with bilingual services. FUMC partners with Nueva Evangelica, providing support for its programs; dozens of FUMC members including Bob Krug put in volunteer hours to make over the basement of the small church for use as a children's ministry.

people in poverty place on relationships. Payne observes that relationships are more important to people in poverty than in the middle class because they are key to survival. Bob Krug is a Circles class facilitator. Each Thursday, he and Bev Miller take 11 people through the Circles curriculum. Classwork starts after the Circle instructors, their adult students and their families share a home-cooked meal in the fellowship hall. Community volunteers provide the food and activities for the children, so their parents can give their full attention to the lessons.

“I felt my voice was not being engaged and my opinion was often dismissed,” she says. But Tristan says she’s found other ways to apply what she learned through Leadership & Faith. She also remains involved with FUMC as an administrative secretary, a job she enjoys.

Many of the students come from work; it is a misconception that all people in poverty are unemployed. Most are simply underemployed, working low-wage jobs with incomes that barely cover basic expenses.

Missy Allen, a L&F team member hired as a parttime employee to coordinate the Circles program, says the decision to limit participation to English speakers was made because the Circles curriculum materials are not available in Spanish and because instructors thought use of translators would be a distraction. But Allen would like to include Spanish speakers in the future when a Spanish curriculum becomes available and if enough bilingual volunteers can be found.

Cultural tensions manifest throughout Garden City, showing up in conflicts within the community, within the church and even within the L&F Team. “Even when we were talking about (Circles) at our church, there were people who were upset about it, who said, ‘Don’t we do enough for them? Don’t we give them enough?’” says Miller. “Garden City is very giving, but not everyone is there yet,” says Jane Krug, “But if you pinned them down they would tell you that we count on people from Mexico to help with our economy. Who is going to work at Tyson’s? Not the average Joe. We would be lost without them. On the other hand, they have lots of needs and we have lots of agencies.”

Whether KLC’s Leadership & Faith efforts bring about progress in Garden City, toward goals of improving community health and revitalizing the congregation through an external focus, depends on what happens next. Bev Miller and Bob Krug believe the congregation will become more engaged in lifting people out of poverty if Circles can produce results. “Hopefully we can get people to make presentations and say, ‘This is what has changed my life.’”

Patricia Tristan says cultural tensions have even stymied the Circles program. Tristan left the team after others decided to only allow English speakers to participate. The decision excluded Spanish speakers, though English-speaking Hispanics are welcome.

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KANSAS LEADERSHIP CENTER • LEADERSHIP & FAITH REPORT • FEBRUARY 2013

PATRICIA TRISTAN, In her own words:

Nueva Evangelica, Garden City

I was a stay-at-home mom and a volunteer with the kids program at our Hispanic church when I attended the Kansas Leadership Center’s Leadership and Faith program in January 2011.

Each Thursday for 12 weeks, the First United Methodist Church in Garden City hosts 11 people as participants in an anti-poverty program called Circles of Hope. The evening always starts with a home-cooked meal for participants and their families. Church volunteers provide the food.

though team members hope to draw most from the larger community because they don’t want the program branded as a Methodist project. Neither group has been forthcoming so far.

The congregation has 1,200 members -- about 400 attend church weekly – and Bell says most of them don’t know much about Circles yet. “We have been talking to the congregation about this for well over a year. But in terms of all the details, I am sure most of them are pretty oblivious” says the pastor. The congregation is overwhelmingly white, middle and upper class, made up of farmers, business owners and educators. “We’re not reaching out to the new Hispanic population that is settling in the community because Hispanics who immigrate to this country aren’t looking to be part of an Anglo congregation,” Bell says.

“We have to get outside our church and talk to people, we need to put ourselves out there and find ways,” says Jane Krug, who plans to meet with local law enforcement and the local hospital. Bob Krug is hopeful the team can enlist the needed volunteers to encircle the less fortunate, who provide valuable insights into what it’s like to be poor in Garden City. “Everybody has stories,” he says. “If some of us middle class would hear some of this, we would be shocked.”

For Circles to succeed, organizers say it needs at least 100 volunteers willing to serve as Circles allies, an 18-month commitment to befriend a stranger. Some will need to come from the congregation,

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Since then many things have happened that allow me to see challenges differently. I now recognize what an adaptive problem is and what a technical problem is, how to diagnose a situation and how to read and understand how peoples’ beliefs, experiences and loyalties shape their viewpoints. My communication with my family has improved, my work environment is more productive and my faith has taken me to a new level of trust.Through the KLC training, I have learned that change can be made only if we take risks and move out of our comfort zones, while at the same time embracing our values, loyalties and beliefs. This past year I joined the workforce to be in ministry with First United Methodist Church as an administrative assistant to the pastors.Adapting to this role has not been easy.Working with individuals that are the best at what they do is challenging. Everyone has an opinion of what is right and what we need to accomplish. Timelines and expectations vary from individual to individual, and that is when I need to climb up to the balcony, observe and diagnose and then proceed with a clear understanding of the issues at hand. Learning to embrace others’ values and beliefs can be difficult but knowing that if we do, we hold a precious key to a good outcome and better communication.

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Polly: So you’re throwing off the authority, and you’re obviously intentionally experimenting? Kent: Over and over and over again. Polly: What about you Randy?

A CONVERSATION with Leadership & Faith Alumni

Randy: I haven’t seen it (authority) as a hindrance in the church I am in now. I have in the past. There was a church where when the pastor says jump, everybody says how high? I remember somebody asking me a question on the ad council and I turned it back on them and got a deer in the headlights look, like I didn’t know what I was doing. Leadership isn’t about telling you what to do. But that’s what they were expecting, and man, I didn’t want anything to do that. It’s as though they want a dictator, an authoritarian person who … Polly: Who sets order and keeps things going?

Polly: It was discussed earlier how people in authority are called upon to maintain order, while leadership requires risk-taking. Since I have four pastors here, I am going to ask whether your position of authority hampers your ability to exert leadership.

On Oct. 22-23, 2012, five dozen alumni of Leadership & Faith: Transforming Communities gathered in Wichita for an opportunity to refresh their skills and discuss experiences with others who had been through the program. What follows is an abbreviated transcript of one of the exchanges that took place during a session called, “Learning Through Story.”

Kent: I don’t know if this answers your question, but my role at First UMC in Wichita has been to distance myself from a role of authority. Wichita First is a place that has given an incredible, almost unhealthy amount of authority to its senior pastor. My office is ungodly, probably twice the size of this room. It’s the highest spot, the most distant spot (in the church). The pulpit is lofty and it hovers above the people.

Moderator: Polly Basore Participants: Lyle Seger Pastor Valley View UMC, Overland Park Jimmy Taylor Pastor Epworth UMC, Wichita

So I distanced myself by setting a different example. This is a church that expects the senior pastor to wear a robe and stole. So on the first Sunday, I had my robe and stole on, and as we got to the moment where the Doxology starts, I felt the need to take my robe and stole off and lay it on the alter table.

Kent Rogers Pastor First UMC, Wichita Randy Quinn Pastor First UMC, Hiawatha

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Randy: Absolutely. Then it’s safe for them. But in the church where I am now, authority is a healthy complement to leadership. There are times I use authority and say, “As your pastor, this is really where I think we need to be going.” And that’s okay. Sometimes I say,“I think we need to take his chance and try it out.” There was a service we tried, a Sunday evening service we called it Pizza and Praise.

Lyle Seger

The associate pastor and I believe if we’re going to make worship a primary component, we’re going to have to take time away from the church. It’s starting to have an impact through our whole congregation, with people saying, “If you’re doing that, maybe I need to do that for my own self.”

Randy: I said, “Let’s try it out, and it didn’t work.” At the end of it, when they looked at me, I said, “So it didn’t work. We learned something!” We learned some things that were important to know about us, our community and the perceptions we had. Okay, cool.”

Polly: That can really be important when you do that as someone in authority and get people to model your behavior. Jimmy?

Polly: Thank you. New question: Can anyone give me an example where a KLC competency was essential to the success of things you tried?

Jimmy: The concept of differentiating between self and role has been really helpful to me, saying, “Okay, I am not going to take this personally.” It’s been better for my marriage, for my own health, family time. Taking one day off? I will take as much as I want if I feel like I need that, if I have been neglecting my family. Whereas before KLC it was like, man, I don’t want to disappoint anybody at the church.

Lyle: Manage Self has been a lifesaver for me. I still need to do a better job -- some health issues are creeping in. But both the associate pastor and I are taking some intentional time off. The previous pastor would come in at 7:30 and not leave the office until 9 at night. He was there all the time, stayed busy, but not necessarily productive.

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KANSAS LEADERSHIP CENTER • LEADERSHIP & FAITH REPORT • SPRING 2011

Polly: What’s been critical to a success?

Polly: I’ve heard several people say that diagnosing frustrates them, that it takes too long. Do you find that?

Kent: Diagnosing Situation, gathering as much information as I can, almost saturating myself with as much history and information and multiple interpretations as I can get. From pastors to lay people to having friends and family members drive by the church and give me first impressions, then saturating myself with prayer saying, “God, you gotta give me direction.” How do I make changes skillfully?

Randy: Yes. It’s tedious and you gotta figure out who to ask. Randy: Learning to manage self and understanding my triggers has been really helpful for me. Another thing is I have probably taken risks and experimented more than in the past. And I’ve started giving work back to others. Since KLC, I have said, “Here’s something that needs to be done. Somebody needs to do it, but I am not the one to do it.” If it doesn’t get done, that is okay with me. There are some people who are really uncomfortable with that and really don’t like that ambiguity.

Lyle: Would you say the diagnosis situation has helped you to avoid land mines? Kent: Oh yeah…

Lyle: Because I thought I had thought things through pretty well, and gosh, there’s another land mine. I just stepped on it.

Polly: When you give the work back, it’s not always accepted?

Kent: The best thing I did, found out (the new assignment) in February then spent all through March and April talking to everybody at the new church.

Randy: No.

Polly: Great examples. Thank you everyone.

APPENDIX

Jimmy Taylor 44.

KANSAS LEADERSHIP CENTER • LEADERSHIP & FAITH REPORT • SPRING 2011

Leadership and Faith Transforming Communities

Survey Findings

ALUMNI SURVEY RESULTS

Overall, how helpful was your KLC experience in preparing you as an individual to make progress on the challenge your church team chose to address?

In order to assess the impact of the Leadership and Faith Transforming Communities program, Wichita State’s Community Support and Research arm conducted a survey of alumni.

Online Survey METHODOLOGY AND PARTICIPANTS The link to the online survey was sent to 250 participants from the first five cohorts in the KLC Leadership and Faith: Transforming Communities programs. Thirty-eight persons responded following an initial e-mail invitation and two reminders over the course of two weeks. Of 49 churches participating in the Leadership and Faith programs (cohorts 1- 5), 29 were represented by the respondents to this survey: Americus, Benton, Blessed Sacrament, Church of the Resurrection West, College Avenue Methodist Manhattan, Dellrose UMC, Dodge FUMC, Emanuel Lutheran – Hutchinson, Epworth United Methodist - Wichita, Eureka, Garden City FUMC, Hiawatha FUMC, Hutchinson Trinity UMC, Lecompton UMC, Lenexa, Liberal FUMC, Lyons FUMC, Medicine Lodge, Minneapolis, Mulvane, New Trinity Heights, Pleasant Valley - Wichita, Pomona, Salina Grand Ave., Topeka FUMC, Wakefield/Ebenezer/Countryside, Wichita Chapel Hill, Wichita East Heights.

KANSAS LEADERSHIP CENTER • LEADERSHIP & FAITH REPORT • SPRING 2011

Compared to other Leadership trainings/experiences, I would rate my KLC experience as…

What is the community issue? • • • • • • • • • • •

Has your church’s experience with the KLC Leadership and Faith program impacted your involvement in a community issue?

Poverty, including Circles of Hope (n=6) Unspecified (n=4) – This theme included comments that referred to the value of the experience rather than a specific issue or effort. Hunger (n=4) Children/youth programs (n=3) Neighborhood/community engagement (n=2) Housing (n=2) Support for military parents (n=1) Substance abuse (n=1) Fitness (n=1) Healthy food (n=1) Church renovation (n=1)

How has your church been impacted overall?

ABOUT THIS REPORT The report was written by Polly Basore, a Wichita-based writer who spent 15 years

as a newspaper journalist, working as a reporter in Washington, D.C., before coming to Kansas in 1998 to work at The Wichita Eagle as a supervisory editor. Since 2003, she has worked as a communications professional assisting nonprofits. She is a native of Stillwater, Oklahoma and a graduate of Oklahoma State University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. This report was produced under the direction of Sue Dondlinger, project director of the Leadership & Faith initiative, Ed Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Malley, president and CEO of the Kansas Leadership Center, Mike Matson, KLC director of innovative and strategic communications and Chris Green, senior communications associate. Photography by Jeff Tuttle and graphic design by Clare McClaren.