New Year reflections for ministry leaders "Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while." (Mark 6:31, NRSV) When Jesus spoke those words of reward and guidance to his apostles, they had just reported back to him about their most ambitious training venture to date. He [...]Read More
Rural Surprises
Go to the people... The past 12 months have been a crash course for me on the realities of doing ministry in rural areas and small towns across America... For example, even though I’ve traveled regularly to Jackson, Mississippi to see my friend John Perkins, it wasn’t until last year [...]Read More
A Beautiful View
Coming home to Vista Hermosa When they were teenagers, Suzanne Broetje and Laura Peréz moved with their families to a valley along the Snake River in southeastern Washington State. Their first experiences of the place couldn’t have been more different. Suzanne’s parents, Cheryl and Ralph [...]Read More
To Define a Neighborhood
The CCDA Institute in Augusta, GA Who has the privilege of defining a neighborhood, of naming its assets and its needs? The city of Augusta, Georgia, is eyeing its Harrisburg neighborhood as a potential site for development because of its prime location. The press has defined Harrisburg as a [...]Read More
God’s Not Busy: Are You?
Encounter. New York City. Times Square. Hungry. “Welcome to McDonald's, CAN I HELP YOU!" said the young lady behind the counter as she rolled her eyes. It wasn't spoken as a question, but as an expression of anger and annoyance for having her life interrupted. As a Neuyorican, a bicultural [...]Read More
The Mayor Moves In
An Interview with Wally Bryan of Challenge House For most of the 1990s, Wally Bryan was mayor of Hopkinsville, Kentucky. After the turn of the millennium, he was in semi-retirement, living in what he calls the outer-city, and feeling “a little adrift.” He read Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life and [...]Read More
A Life of Reconciliation
An Interview with John M. Perkins John M. Perkins, the founder of CCDA, participated in the American Civil Rights Movement over four decades ago. In honor of Black History Month, we wanted to interview him for his unique (and 80-year-old) perspective on racial reconciliation. [Former] CCDA [...]Read More
Rural Justice (Part 2)
Two practitioners share the ins and outs of doing CCD in rural America [In the first part of the series], we interviewed Rev. Tim Olsen of Summit House, part of Sioux Falls Seminary in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. [For part two], we talked with Pat Vander Pol, ministry coordinator of Justice for All [...]Read More