Vision Renewal: Stronger Community
Vision Renewal: Stronger Community by Rev. L. John Gable
May 21, 2023
Introduction: In recent weeks we have been looking again at our Vision Renewal Statement written in 2016 which was created in response to the question “Do we still agree with the Metropolitan Community Program report which was written in 1966 which influenced our decision to remain in place here at 34th and Central?” After a year of study and conversations we reaffirmed our commitments and laid out three visions for Tab: Greater Faith, Deeper Relationships, and this morning we will consider Stronger Community.
To that end. Let us pray.
Last summer Kris and I attended the wedding of the son of some good friends of ours in the Amana Colonies in Iowa, and except for getting covid at the reception, we had a wonderful time. It is a beautiful little community and we enjoyed it so much we decided to extend our time there for a day or so. Looking for something to read, I found a visitor’s guide which explained their 308 year history. If you are not familiar, I found it very interesting.
In the early 1700’s there was a religious awakening in Germany. Two men, a Lutheran clergyman and a harness maker, became friends and shared a strong belief that a prayerful, meditative relationship with the Lord will lead to a Godly life. Advocating humility and piety expressed in simple worship, they believed that God through the Holy Spirit would communicate to the faithful through faithful individuals just as He did in the days of the Biblical prophets. So they began meeting in small groups to worship and pray, and soon others joined them. They called themselves Inspirationists. It wasn’t long before their views and practices were considered to be radical by those in the established religious orders which led to persecution, so they had to relocate, first within Germany, but by the middle 19th century to New York, and then to the Amana Colonies (5 of them), Iowa. Amana meaning “remain true.”
Their story intrigued me because the Inspirationists established a communal way of living. They owned their mills, shops and farmland in common and all needs were provided for by the community. Day to day life revolved around worship, home, work and school. All meals were prepared at neighborhood kitchen houses (50 of them for the residents of the five colonies) and everything from soap to stove wood was provided by the community for its residents. This way of communal life lasted for 89 years until 1932 when economic pressures forced changes in the way the community operated, yet were you to visit still today you would see evidence of that communal way of life.
As I read that history it sounded so much like the way Luke describes the early church in our lesson from Acts 2. Shared faith, shared life, shared possessions as any had need. Perhaps this is the real miracle of Pentecost. Not just that they spoke in other languages and performed signs and wonders, but that diverse people learned how to live together under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Those first believers established a new way of doing life together. And that difference was evident to those around them, as we read, “And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.”
I can’t help but think that those Inspirationists who founded the Amana Colonies were inspired by that vision of the early church, so what of us in the Church today? What can we learn from them? I am not advocating for communal living here, but listen again to the third leg of our Vision Renewal statement: A Stronger Community.
“Tab will work in partnership with its neighbors to strengthen the Mapleton-Fall Creek community, advocate for justice and promote God’s shalom for all people. Tab will be a congregation that partners with its Mapleton-Fall Creek neighbors to meet the physical and spiritual needs of the community outside its doors, working to equip people to overcome obstacles, collaborating with individuals and organizations to advocate for justice, and recognizing that our faith and obedience will be judged by the way we walk with those in need.”
Added to our desire for Greater Faith and Deeper Relationships, this is our vision for A Stronger Community, for the welfare and well-being of our neighbors, not just for ourselves. Why? Because of our desire for deeper relationships born of our greater faith. Once we get to know our neighbors and come to understand their needs (as well as their assets and talents) it is hard to just smile and wave as we walk, or more likely drive, past them. Suddenly their needs become our needs, and their desires become our desires for a stronger, better, healthier community.
Now, this idea is not original to us. In our Old Testament lesson Jeremiah made the radical suggestion that the people who had been carried off in to exile in Babylonia, after the Babylonians had totally overrun their nation and destroyed the Temple and their beloved city of Jerusalem, the prophet told them they should pray and work for the welfare of the city, not Jerusalem, Babylon. The word “welfare” is the Hebrew word “shalom”, which Robert Lupton describes as “the prevailing presence of peace and goodness in the relationship of God’s diverse family”. Shalom is the total sense of well-being, of security and health in all aspects of life. Interestingly enough, Jeremiah says, “for in their welfare you will find your welfare.” What is good for us is good for them, and what is good for them is good for us, which really means there is no “us and them” when it comes to a desire for shalom.
This idea of communal well-being set John Calvin in Geneva and those early Reformers elsewhere apart because they were as interested in the people’s physical well-being as they were their spiritual well-being, so they set out to establish standards for clean water and sanitation systems, advocated for improved schools and encouraged their people to run for civic offices to help effect those changes. The desire for stronger communities is hard wired in to what it means to be a Presbyterian, caring for physical as well as spiritual needs, the needs of communities as well as those of individuals.
And it is hard wired in to what it means to be a part of Tab. This idea of a stronger community didn’t originate with us in 2016. It has been a part of us from the start, and are some of my favorite Tab stories to tell.
Recall why 100 years ago we moved to 34th and Central from 11th and Meridian? It was because there were no churches offering Christian Education classes to the children of Mapleton- Fall Creek. So we built a small education structure on this corner and the day it opened we had 100 children in Sunday school, by the end of the first year 1000 and it continued to grow, so much so that we determined to move the entire church to this corner and built this magnificent facility to help meet the spiritual needs of the children and families of this community, to help make it a stronger community. That was 1923.
By 1924, with a donation of $50, we started the Tab Recreation program because a group of neighborhood kids needed a place to play, rather than them having to sneak in to the church’s coal bin. That program will turn 100 next year and it has become the model for any church around the country that offers sports and recreation as a part of their ministry. Today approximately 1500 kids are playing some kind of sport at Tab; this week alone we will host 58 soccer games, most of them were played yesterday. We believe physical health and spiritual health help to form a stronger community.
On Palm Sunday, 1992, our pastor, Frank Kik preached a sermon from this pulpit outlining his vision for a stronger community. In that message he pointed out our front doors and said, “There is an abandoned office building right across the street. We should purchase it and do something for the health needs of our neighbors.” As I’ve been told the story, after worship that day a woman handed him a check for $80,000 and said, “Make that happen.” Six of our doctors committed to starting a free health clinic two Saturdays mornings a month, and eventually that expanded to what is now the Raphael Health Clinic. At that same time a group of Tab attorneys said they wanted to do something to assist with the myriad of legal needs in the neighborhood, so they organized what is now the Neighborhood Christian Legal Clinic.
It wasn’t too many years after that the vision was cast to create a school which offers classical Christian Education, committed to a diverse student population, socially, racially and economically. So, in partnership with others, we started the Oaks Academy, which now has expanded to three campuses, pre K through middle school.
There are so many stories similar to these which I love to tell and believe need to be told, not to brag on us, but to demonstrate, and to remind ourselves of, our long-held commitment to a stronger community, but what I love most about these particular stories is this: first, each of those ministries was “birthed” here but then launched out as a separate not-for-profit, 501 C-3 organization. If any one of those had remained simply a committee of Tab they would never have grown to have the influence and impact they have. Second, each of those organizations was founded during a time in Tab’s history which most would describe as being “difficult”. The idea for these ministries did not germinate in the soils of ease and comfort, but in the days of uncertainty and struggle, and God has blessed them.
There are many other ministries Tab has birthed which could and should be mentioned here, all committed to a stronger community: Tab Tutoring, the Open Door Café, the Community Care program, Fresh Stop, and we have our fingerprints on countless ministries in the neighborhood: the Mapleton- Fall Creek CDC, the Unleavened Bread Café, Indy Grace Place and the list goes on.
I am not suggesting that any of these reflect the communal way of life spoken of in Acts chapter 2, or the Amana Colonies, but I do think that we share a desire to live in to the vision cast by Jeremiah to pray and work for the welfare and shalom of the city.
When in our conversations we asked our members and neighbors, “What is Tab’s greatest opportunity for impact?” we were almost always told our greatest opportunity sits right outside our doors, in our neighborhood, and we know the needs are great. I will confess to you that one of the, perhaps many, reasons I have not led us in to the deep and troubling political and denominational issues which have encircled us in the past 15 years of my tenure as your pastor is because I have been far more concerned about the deep and troubling needs of those who live in this neighborhood and emanating out from here to our city, nation and world. These are the struggles I have chosen to engage in with you, and the needs persist.
I’ll close by quoting the Vision Renewal statement “Tab’s legacy of service to the community is strong and respected. This vision calls Tab not to bask in that legacy but, rather, to expand it, build on it and leverage it so we can be a partner in efforts to develop ourselves, our neighbors and our community. So we cast a vision of engaged advocacy and action on behalf of service and justice….that we may serve as an organizational example of servant leadership, acting as a convener and catalyst for the flourishing of the community and God’s people, serving as a nucleus and nexus that draws people in so that they might be inspired, energized and sent out for the work of the Kingdom.” Another way to state that is, we have a desire that when there is a need in the community people will think of us at Tab as way to help meet it. Not that we have all the answers, but that we are a people who will listen, lend resources, and advocate for the meeting of those needs, believing that our neighbors’ needs are our needs, their desire for shalom is our desire for shalom, in their welfare is our welfare, as well.
Friends, there is still much work to be done and we are the ones called to help do it out of our desire for Greater Faith, Deeper Relationships and a Stronger Community. That is who we are, past, present, and God willing what He will continue to call us to be and do long in to the future. About that we will talk more next week.
Rev. L. John Gable
Tabernacle Presbyterian Church
Indianapolis, IN