Two nights ago, I attended a town hall meeting in Harrisburg. It was organized and hosted by Harrisburg Hope, an initiative from the office of Representative Patty Kim. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss some of the ways Harrisburg can avoid becoming the next Ferguson, MO. The meeting had a panel which included several key players of the Harrisburg landscape.
One the panelist was a young minister from St. Louis. Of course I was pleasantly surprised. He graduated from the same high school as the police shooting victim, Michael Brown. It is the same high school where one of my sisters-in-law teaches. This minister graduated from there in 1998 and came to Pennsylvania for college. After his college graduation, he moved to Lancaster, PA.
His comments, during the discussion, kept taking the conversation back to the realities of an American system in which our nation profits from the poverty of the least of its citizens (minorities, children, elderly, disabled, etc). I was very impressed with him and I was also impressed with Representative Kim because she boldly called out and challenged the Dauphin County leadership for how they have treated African American men and boys.
Up until that meeting, I have always wanted to learn who are the people that genuinely have the best interest of Harrisburg in their hearts. That night I discovered some of them. In the midst of the typical posturing and rhetoric, these two stood out, head and shoulders, above the group. I must admit that I don’t know these people and I have never been involved in their organizations, so I cannot make a judgment concerning any of them. But from the comments that were made in that meeting, I have a much clearer understanding of Harrisburg.
The largest portion of the meeting was given to allow comments and questions from the audience. Obviously, there was a lot of frustration and anger expressed from most of them. They challenged the unfair treatment of community by the police and the horrible practices within the school system that includes drugging the children and criminalizing the behavior of the Black male children in particular.
Some people stood and expressed desperate pleas for funding and volunteers in their individual efforts to provide activities and programs for youth and children. All throughout the session, I kept hearing a consistent theme: We need someone to help us!
After the event, I made my way to meet the young minister and to meet Representative Patty Kim. I expressed to both of them how much this was needed. I asked one of the panelists if this meeting was the first one with true intention to bring everyone to the table for solutions and he confirmed that my assessment was true. I told Representative Kim that if this kind of meeting had been offered in St. Louis, then the Ferguson incident might never have happened.
I didn’t hand out my business cards to anyone that night and I made no political or religious contacts or connections. My purpose in going was to watch and observe. I came away from that meeting with clear vision. It gave me an understanding of our times and the wisdom to know what Urban Life must do.
I heard a community crying out for help. I saw disconnected and disjointed efforts by many individuals to provide help. I saw all kinds of people with all kinds of strategies to meet all kinds of needs. Each one, in his own way was saying, come over here and help me provide the help. Not one person said, "I will connect what I’m doing with what you’re doing." Not one person said, "I’ll connect my program with your program and pool our resources to make a bigger impact." Instead I observed the continuation of the problem in which everyone wants to be the boss, but no one wants to follow. Some call it the Messiah Syndrome because each one wants to be the savior for Harrisburg.
So now I have a better understanding of why God has us here in Harrisburg at this time. God has allowed my hometown to become a central theme of major problems in our country and right here in Harrisburg, people are crying out for help to try to avoid a similar social upheaval. Now we're all faced with the one question: How will we do it?
OUR first order of business is to establish an Urban Life Ministry Team that can respond to that cry for help. Right now, we’re going to prepare ourselves by alternating Sundays between intercessory prayer, one week, teaching the next week.
I don’t know when we’ll make connections with the various people on that panel. I certainly desire to do so. In the meantime, we are getting ourselves prepared. We are doing what we can for now.
We’re going to do our part in the upcoming street outreach in south Harrisburg and we’re going to prepare ourselves for harvest. We’re going to prepare out nets for a great catch of fish. We’re going to be ready to serve and minister to others in these perilous times and we’re going to fulfill God’s purpose for Urban Life in this community, in this nation and in this world.
Are you ready to respond to the cry for help?
