For discussion

March 2010

Acting on faith: A Twin Cities faith-based collaborative works to address disparities in the region

By Reverend Deborah Hutterer, Faith in the City

Deborah Hutterer

Deborah Hutterer is the executive director of Faith in the City. She explores, coordinates, and implements strategies that assist Lutheran partners in promoting stronger and healthier city neighborhoods in Minneapolis.

Thirty-four percent of Minnesota's population is Lutheran. This statistic would suggest that Lutherans have a significant presence in our workplaces, neighborhoods, and churches across the state. It also suggests that Lutherans, when equipped and challenged, have the ability to influence quality of life in Minnesota and its communities.

My question is, have Lutherans taken this responsibility to heart?

In February 2009, Faith in the City, a collaboration of Lutheran organizations with the goal of shared leadership, shared resources, and a shared mission for a stronger, healthier community, sponsored The Servant Church Arises event to address this and related questions. The leaders of this collaboration believe Lutherans can and should offer leadership in addressing the issues identified by the Itasca Project and the Brookings Institution with the Mind the Gap report. Thus, the goal of the event was to raise awareness of disparities around race, place, and class, to make a case for why we need to be involved and care, and to encourage people of faith into faithful action.

Lutherans from congregations and ministries around the metro were invited to bring six to eight people from their organization to respond to this challenge. In addition, all Faith in the City institutions, including their CEOs, were present. Catholic Charities, as an invited guest, also participated in this conversation.

Engaging presenters offered brief, powerful messages:

Mary Brainerd, president and CEO of HealthPartners laid the statistical groundwork in regard to the Twin Cities urban/suburban disparities.
Reverend Nancy Maeker, director of A Minnesota Without Poverty, led an interactive exercise that highlighted how the most effective responses to inequities combine charity, education, and advocacy. (Most participants discovered, to their chagrin, that they have been engaged primarily with acts of charity.)
Reverend Peter Rogness, bishop, St. Paul Area Synod, ELCA, led a bible study that invited participants into deeper understanding that people of faith must be involved in tending to the needs of the poor, outcast, and stranger. Authentic faith is lived out in love of God and love of neighbor.

In the last segment of the program, participants worked together to create an action plan. What would they do when they left the room? With whom might they partner to address disparities of race, place, and class in the Twin Cities?

As our group action that day, participants were invited to sign the Common Foundation. Immediately following our gathering, Faith in the City organizations delivered this document to state legislators, thanking them for their valuable work, and encouraging them to continue to be a voice for the most vulnerable.

In June 2009, we followed up to see what changes, if any, had occurred. Here is what participants from the convening reported:

Augsburg College Vocatio Series 2009-2010 changed their original theme to address race, place, and class disparities.
Calvary Lutheran, Golden Valley, invited Reverend Maeker to a two-part series to learn more concrete responses to poverty in Minnesota.
Edina Lutheran Church recognized their emphasis on education and charity, and decided to improve their advocacy efforts, and is working with the Interfaith Immigration Coalition to find more opportunities for systematic advocacy, focusing efforts on youth and family, hunger, homelessness and others.
Gustavus Adolphus Lutheran Church offered classes during Lent using the Close the Gap series.
Bethlehem Lutheran in-the-Midway began serving meals as a way to engage neighbors and address hunger. They also partnered with Youth Works to cook and distribute lunches in the community.

Disparities exist. Some people see this more clearly than others. All people of faith, and all segments of society, share a moral commitment to alleviate the conditions that cause disparities. Throughout our state's history, Lutherans have participated in weaving the social fabric of Minnesota, and created institutions – hospitals, colleges, social welfare organizations – to serve the community in unique ways. The Servant Church Arises was one opportunity to gather, acknowledge the facts, and pledge ourselves as leaders of Lutheran congregations to join in this work, to make an impact and to eliminate disparities.

This is a bold, audacious goal. It arises from a vision that we together make up a community where our lives and our futures are intertwined, and that we share both the responsibility and the opportunity to shape the kind of life we share together.