2008-Present Beyond the Church Walls – Peachtree Road Storybook

PART IV 2008-Present
"Beyond the Church Walls"

Water is amazing.

It gives us life and is used in our faith practices as a symbol of life.
Water is powerful. Many of the rivers of the world start as springs from aquifers hidden beneath the earth’s surface. Often the water emerges as a small trickle or a spring that begins an unstoppable journey to the ocean. Along the way the trickle from one spring merges with the trickle from another to become a stream and then a river.
Water flow does not take a direct course. The contours of the earth, whether God made or manmade, shift the direction. Rocks and limbs fall into streams further altering the path. However, no matter the magnitude of disruption and change along the way, water continues its immutable journey to the ocean. There is beauty and surprise in every turn as God’s ultimate plan, which cannot be stopped, is fulfilled.

Life is similar. We pass through different seasons and experience all manner of disruption. Steadfast in our faith, we journey forward. For two decades PRUMC thrived under the leadership of Don Harp and talented clergy associates and dedicated lay program directors. The church grew and prospered. While the path meandered a little as life happened around us, we generally knew where we were going.
And then there was change.

In 2008 the church learned that Bill Britt would be arriving to lead PRUMC. Change brings excitement but also apprehension. What will change? How will we continue our journey? What is our next chapter?

2008 through 2024 brought many challenges and opportunities. I am reminded of words spoken by Bishop Mack Stokes at a church conference to discuss a new building initiative. In a heartfelt and fiery rhetoric, Bishop Stokes challenged the congregation to move forward stating that there were only two possible paths, “adventure or decay. “

Under Bill Britt’s leadership the adventure continued.

PRUMC has continued to prosper and grow. Perhaps our course might have moved in a slightly different direction without a leadership change. But the path has been equally beautiful. The power of water, of life, has been witnessed and PRUMC has only grown stronger in its journey. New leadership, new ideas, new members, new relationships with congregants, new associate ministers and program staff have all enhanced our community and spiritual growth. It has been an exciting 17 years.

Growth

Membership increased from 5,478 in 2000 to 8,082 in 2020. More importantly, the ministries and programs have grown and prospered, and dreams imagined are becoming dreams fulfilled even while life happened and from time to time pushed us off our path or helped us find a new path.

As is often the case, a new leader is faced not only with the expected challenges but also the unexpected. Bill arrived as the Harp Youth Center was under construction and we needed to raise funds. Simultaneously, the country was facing a banking crisis and the Big Recession of 2008-2009. The markets plummeted, unemployment spiked, and the GDP shrunk. PRUMC met the challenge, raised the money to complete the building while also continuing to care for people in need – both members of the church and of the community

Missions

As the world around us shook with economic instability, PRUMC increased its already strong presence in missions by devoting more staff and parishioners to helping others. Beth Spencer tackled local outreach with a goal of serving organizations with our hands and feet in addition to our money. The blessing received by the people we helped was returned tenfold to the members who worked side by side with them. Organizations like Hollis Elementary School, Murphy Harpst Children’s Center, Wesley Woods Senior Living, all of which focus on the underserved, received money, love and engagement from our congregation. The Great Day of Service was reimagined as an opportunity for service covering projects throughout the metropolitan area.

Volunteers serve in a variety of programs across the city.

Habitat Homes

Other volunteers pushed our Atlanta Habitat for Humanity program, which began during the Don Harp years. These volunteers built and helped to finance 52 affordable houses for people who work and live in our city but never have the opportunity for home ownership.

A creative staff and laity recruited countless volunteers to build a ministry with programs to serve citizens returning from incarceration helping them receive the spiritual, financial and educational support needed to re-enter society as contributing members of our city. For a Centennial project, PRUMC has partnered with City of Refuge and Atlanta Habitat to build a Welcome Home Village on the City of Refuge campus for use by returning citizens as they transition back to living independently outside the walls of a prison. Two 6-bedroom houses and two 2-bedroom apartments will welcome 16 women starting a new life outside of prison.

International mission efforts, led initially by Anne French, were also reimagined and expanded. The work with orphans and other displaced children in the country of Georgia has brought stability in housing and education and a promise for a better future to many children. Dollars are given but many volunteers have travelled the globe to show love.

Nicaragua became a focal point as we worked primarily with two organizations – one focused on orphans or otherwise displaced or impoverished children, encouraging them in their education and providing safe housing. The other organization focused on education, housing and medical care for impoverished families. The people of Nicaragua were glad to see us but the dozens of families traveling to engage in missions were transformed forever.

Kenya also has become a focal point for PRUMC as it partners with our members and friends, Bill and Chat Coble. They have built a wonderful ministry in Kenya initially providing clean water to people in a country where a leading cause of death is water borne illness and now expanding the mission to building and funding schools and providing scholarships. The relationships are strong and every Christmas Eve we are offered the opportunity to share with our Kenyan friends by providing funding for water filters.

Expansion

PRUMC has a history of planting churches and under Bill’s leadership, with the help of the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church, we started a new campus on the Westside of Atlanta with a few planted members and a drive to recruit new members in the area. Daniel Ogle has been a visionary with a warm heart embodying the spirit of our church. Under his leadership the church, first meeting in a brewery, is now slated to occupy the building once owned by Collins Memorial UMC. Collins Memorial graciously agreed to bring themselves and their programs, including a wonderful food bank, into the fold of our Westside campus.

New Ways

Has it always been easy? No. But with God all things are possible. The pandemic and ultimate lockdown at the start of 2020 caught us by surprise and could have crippled our congregation. It hurt but we kept our eyes turned forward and learned to worship in a different way. Sipping coffee at home sitting in front of a TV screen can make for a convenient way to participate in worship and kept us connected. It may not be the best but, on an ongoing basis, it has allowed people who were traveling, who lived in different parts of the country, or who were rushed to participate in worship and small groups and Bible studies. Instead of taking the church down, we learned to look for ways to create success from the challenges of the pandemic. We found them and learned from them.

New Relationships

The last ten years have been filled with conversation about the meaning of equality and social justice. Under Bill’s leadership, PRUMC partnered with Cascade United Methodist Church, a historically predominantly black church, to engage in a yearlong dialogue to better understand these concepts from the perspective of two significant racial groups. In small groups we challenged one another to consider these ideas in light of the Great Commission and the Great Commandment. We pushed people to reach outside their comfort zone and truly embrace, welcome and engage in meaningful dialogue with all people regardless of race, political philosophy, or social principles. This partnership has been inspiring and has helped us in our mission fields, domestic and international, and in our spiritual growth in our congregations and in our community as we take additional steps to have open hearts and minds in all we do.

UMC Relationships

Coincidentally the work done in the partnership with Cascade was extremely helpful as we stepped up to seriously consider the crisis facing our United Methodist denomination over the years as a record number of congregations sought to disaffiliate from the denomination over concerns about church polity on human sexuality. Rather than highlight the positions of different factions in a battle to determine right and wrong, our leaders guided us to focus on “that which unites us and not that which divides us.” We were asked to embrace our United Methodist traditions established by John Wesley long ago and stay focused on the road ahead – a road marked by a desire to live out words commonly attributed to John Wesley and posted in Methodist literature: “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.” Even as the immediate crisis of disaffiliation has passed and the United Methodist Church creates a new way forward, we as a congregation are better prepared to face the future and the next crisis inside or outside the church.

I could write forever. PRUMC is more active than ever, and new initiatives are started every year as leaders step up to help us explore our call. The topics about which we could write are endless and you will read more about special programs like One Lamb, our mental health initiative, and about a favorite local mission, Christmas Kindness. But we must close somewhere and as we do I reflect that the buildings were built and the people came and meaningful programs were started as Don Harp led us for twenty years. The past seventeen years, led by Bill Britt, are best characterized by two things – spiritual and programmatic growth as we matured in the use of our physical facilities and in the foundations of our faith. We found our way as we dealt with economic challenges, a pandemic, societal challenges around race and justice, and internal strife within the church over the church’s response to social change.

In the end, PRUMC, like water, has proved itself to be unstoppable in its quest to discern and follow God’s plan. We are blessed with wonderful resources, people and lay and ministerial leaders. We will find our ocean as we serve God and others.