PM - Article: Expanding Our Vision

Expanding Our Vision
By Pete Cafarchio, Board of Trustees Member and "Share the Vision" Task Force Chair

Over the years, God has given Paxton Ministries a unique and effective model to care for poor and disadvantaged adults. The problem is, the model is too unique! What I mean is that there just aren’t enough other groups doing similar work. Many more communities have hurting people who are being neglected, and more churches need to be reaching out and caring for the needy in their midst.

The model is also too effective. The countless testimonies of changed lives have gotten the attention of state and county agencies, church leaders and others, so that the waiting list at Paxton Ministries is far too long. This has caused us to question, “Should we be doing more? And if so, how do we expand? Do we physically expand Paxton Ministries to address the long waiting list?”

“Share The Vision” Task Force Purpose: To inspire and assist Christian groups to replicate the Paxton Ministries service model.

Activities:

- Promote: Spread the word through multiple communication vehicles.

- Pursue: When interested parties are identified, we will explore the possibilities further to see if and how we can help them get started.

- Present: Present qualified opportunities to the Board of Trustees with recommendations for further action. Follow up may include ministry training, “lending” some key staff to help them get established, financial support, volunteer help, etc.

- Pray: We need divine appointments with the right people. We also see the temptation to “make things happen” in our own strength, but rather we desire to wait on the Lord. "Guide our steps, Lord."

Two concerns have come to the forefront of our thinking as we’ve considered physically expanding Paxton Ministries:

1. We don’t want to grow so large that we lose the family-like atmosphere and sense of community that is such a key element of our model being a success.

2. A growing number of our residents have moved a great distance (from New Jersey, Connecticut, even Oregon) and left behind their family and friends to live here because they could not find a Christian home like ours in their home area.

In the past two years, as we’ve mulled over these questions, we’ve sensed God leading us to be torchbearers for this cause in a creative new way. Our vision is simple.

We believe that instead of Paxton Ministries growing even larger, we are to encourage and nurture the beginning of more Christian homes for the disadvantaged in other cities and regions. Much like a thriving congregation plants a daughter church, we are exploring how God can use our model to open more homes for the poor and disabled.

This past March, our vision grew feet. At a breakfast meeting on March 31, twenty people gathered for the kickoff meeting of our “Share the Vision” Task Force. As task force chair and a member of our Board of Trustees, I shared the purpose and activities of our task force, as detailed on page one of this newsletter.

The nature of this task force is very flexible, entrepreneurial, fluid, active, and fun! Formal committee meetings will be almost non-existent. Instead, the group is relying heavily on electronic communications (through e-mail and the world wide web). A loosely structured forum is provided where task force members can offer whatever gifts they have, make connections within their personal networks, and have an avenue for news updates and feedback.

Nineteen years ago, an ad hoc group of forty people met to discuss the possibility for a housing ministry to poor and disabled adults in Harrisburg. That meeting was the initial seed of what is today Paxton Ministries. There was a sense of excitement in the air at that time, and we sense a similar excitement today as we launch this task force. We covet your prayers and support in this effort.

The Need For Community

There are so many people who live alone, crushed by their loneliness. It is obvious that too much solitude can drive people off the rails, to depression or alcoholism...there are so many who are looking for a family and a meaning to their lives. In the years to come, we are going to need so many small communities which welcome lost and lonely people, offering them a family and a sense of belonging. At other times, Christians who wanted to follow Jesus opened hospitals and schools. Now that there are so many of these, Christians must commit themselves to the new communities of welcome, to live with people who have no other family and to show them that they are loved.

- Jean Vanier, founder of the L’arche communities, from his book Community and Growth (1979)

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