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With the suicides came shame
because so many people would
think you were going to hell. . . |
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Mimi Moore, church member |
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MINISTRY
SUMMARY |
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New Church Plant in distressed rural town, storefront
location |
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Demographics drive
missional planning |
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Joint Episcopal-Lutheran (ELCA) effort |
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Alternative to predominant religious tradition |
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Liturgical worship style |
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Ecumenical community-based vision |
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Mission to help the hurting and doubting—ministry of
"listening" |
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Relational approach to evangelism |
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It's a Wonderful Life
Click here to read the Full
Story |
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A new church plant, concerned about the escalating suicide rate in their
small community dares to go where no ministry has gone before. What followed was the
beginning of a quiet miracle. . . |
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When a famous company that manufactures men's and
boy's underwear—a seemingly necessary commodity in life—closes its plant, laying
off its entire work force, life couldn't get any more hopeless. Or could it? For the small
town of Campbellsville, Kentucky, pop. 11,000, the final nail in the coffin was when their
second biggest employer, Batesville Casket Company, pulled up stakes and closed its plant,
draining what little was left of the town's economic lifeblood. Proving that even coffin
makers don't always have a final resting place.
Although the town ultimately survived, for some of the dislocated, the turnaround was a
day late and a dollar short. Many of them lost their houses and some, sadly, took their
own lives. In the aftermath of April 15, 1998, it would be two churches—St. Thomas, a
new church plant, and the other, Bethel First Presbyterian—that would join together
and
go in where angels maybe not have feared to go, but had little experience in
treading.
"It was a human story that validated what the demographic and missional planning
information told us we should do," lay vicar
Karl Lusk would say afterwards. And it was a many-layered tale to
tell. A tale about companies and churches using statistics for very
different purposes, yet with some surprisingly common, and even redemptive,
results. Results that would end up saving the very soul
of a town. . . -Jenni Keast |
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There's more. .
. read the full story! |
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© COPYRIGHT 2008 PERCEPT GROUP, INC. |
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GO TO THE STORY ARCHIVE |
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