Community Organising for Congregational Renewal

How can a congregation utilize community organising to build relationships with others in their community?

What are linkages between church mission and the work of a broad-based alliance?

How can a listening campaign unite a parish through greater understanding of each other stories?

Rev Terry Moe has been a Lutheran pastor for 28 years, the last 24 in Portland, Oregon in the United States. He has also been a leader in a community organising alliance for more than 20 years, working to build power relationally for the common good as a key part of his ministry.

He and his congregation at Redeemer Lutheran have used the tools of community organising to envision a new way of being in their neighborhood on behalf of the gospel.  Through this process, the congregation, decided "to become vulnerable for the sake of the community."

It has seen the development of Leaven Community, within which the vibrant Salt and Light Lutheran Church is now located.  

This journey has seen Rev Terry and his congregation work with other faith communities as well as labour unions to bring prevailing wage infrastructure jobs to his community, be a part of driving out drug houses and then decontaminating the homes that had been made unsafe through methamphetamine production. His congregation has helped save a health fund that insured 100,000 low income families, and secure an additional $75million for new affordable housing in Oregon.

At this forum, Pastor Moe will share stories of faith and organising, of how a congregation can build relationships in it's community to achieve justice, and how spiritual communities brought together by organising for justice can be grow alongside a Lutheran congregation.