Thoughts from a New Fellow by Rachel Leary

In the months following my acceptance into the Fellows Program I found it nearly impossible to explain to friends and family exactly what I would be doing starting September 1^st , 2009. For simplicity sake I would often tell people I had an internship with a church, where I would be working with the youth group and taking some Seminary classes.  I always walked away slightly dissatisfied, wishing that we could talk for few more minutes, wishing that I could share with them my ever-increasing joy and excitement for the upcoming nine months in Trinity’s Fellows Program. It’s not that the Fellows Program is vague or disorganized. It’s quite the opposite; the individual pieces of the program, including both church and local community involvement, as well as opportunities for personal growth are knit together into an intricate 9-month fabric of life experiences that cannot be compared to any other post-graduate opportunities in the country. If I had a few more minutes to talk about the upcoming program I would start by describing the workplace experience. For the first three days of the workweek Fellows are placed in an internship in a local business in the Charlottesville community. Besides the opportunity for practical workplace experience, these internships are meant to help Fellows explore their own God-given abilities and passions. Take, for my example, my classmate Emily Mims, a recent graduate of Davidson College, who has the most incredible heart for children and for service. This year she is working with the “I Have a Dream” Foundation at the local Albemarle High School, where those God-given passions will continue to develop as she is in the process of changing kids lives through the work of the Foundation. Out of my class of 15 Fellows, I know that each and every one of us views our internship as an incredible opportunity.

If time allowed, I would also share that Thursday and Friday mornings our Fellows class takes Seminary classes through the Charlottesville’s Center for Christian Study. For most of us, myself included, this is the first time that we have ever studied our faith in such an academic setting. Despite the fact that many former Fellows have been called to various forms of vocational ministry or further Seminary study, our classes are not solely intended as ministry training. The classes are forcing us to engage our faith and understanding of the God in a new way, particularly by exploring the relationship between our head knowledge and the heart knowledge. Already, in just two weeks of class, my personal faith in God has been enriched by our intellectual exploration of church history and the doctrine of the trinity. These academic pursuits are not something that only young people need to participate in- believers of any age and any stage of their faith would experience a deepening of faith this type of rigorous study.

Perhaps the highlight of the week is the two hours that we spend at Johnson Elementary School on Thursday afternoon. The Fellows, along with dozens of university and community volunteers, work with Charlottesville’s Abundant Life Ministries in an after-school tutoring program. Proportionally, we spend such a short time with Abundant Life, but it is potentially one of the most powerful experiences fo the week. Two weeks ago I met Anicea, a third-grade at Johnson, who loving accepted me into her world, begging me with her attention and her eyes to pour out some genuine love. Not only do I have the opportunity to help Anicea with her multiplication tables and her reading skills, but I can demonstrate the love of Christ to her simply by showing up every week and giving of myself.

If I could steal a few more minutes of my listener’s time, I would attempt to explain that ways that the relationships in and around the Fellows Program have the biggest impact on a Fellow’s experience. Host families open up their homes to complete strangers, generously caring for our physical needs, but also inviting us into the intimate community of their families. Mentors from Trinity’s congregation volunteer their time and wisdom to invest in our lives, with the purpose of seeing us come to a deeper and richer understanding of our Lord Jesus Christ. Trinity’s youth group welcomes the Fellows with open arms, allowing us to jump into the lives of dozens of middle and high-school kids and grow in Christ-like friendship with them.  As a church, Trinity welcomes us into the lives of their people, loving us in a way that only Christ can and teaching us the beauty of broken, but redeemed church community.

Do you see why it’s impossible to explain the Fellows program in a sentence or two? Even after explaining the rundown of our weekly activities, it would be hard to describe the full experience of the program, because it’s the relationship between the parts that constructs the whole. Everything that I am learning in class is speaking into the way that I approach my job and my relationships all the people I encounter daily. My job is teaching me things about the secular work world that can contribute to Christian community. And being loved by this new family of Fellows, host families, mentors, and the community of Trinity Presbyterian is transforming and renewing my life so that I may better glorify God in everything that I do.

Fellows Farewell

by Matt Kleberg I’m not very good, even after nine months, at describing precisely what the Trinity Fellows Program is.

If I were to explain the Trinity Fellows Program on a professional resume it would probably look something like “a leadership development program coupling marketplace experience, volunteerism, and graduate studies focused on professional and personal development.” But that seems prickly- too impersonal. Describing it to distant cousins in Texas, the Fellows Program might sound like a bizarre combination of going to class, working a job, living with a family, volunteering at the church, and spending nearly every waking moment with twelve other young and restless souls. But that seems random and does no justice to the richness and intention of the program’s many facets.

The difficulty in describing the Fellows Program is that no simple description rightly captures the uniqueness and breadth of the Fellows experience.

So as the 2009 Fellows prepare to move on to whatever comes next, and the 2010 Fellows eagerly await the beginning of their program, I would like to pause and reflect on the year.

As our pastors here at Trinity have walked the church through Hebrews this year, we have come to identify with a picture of pilgrimage. As pilgrims in the wilderness, we find rest in the hope we have in Christ, in the Kingdom that is to come and is, in part, already here.  I am both humbled and emboldened by the notion that God chooses to invite such leaky vessels as myself to partake in the expansion of that Kingdom, and I am grateful to have experienced glimpses of the Kingdom during this Fellows year.  Those glimpses came from our families, classes, jobs, etc.

We discussed in our classes and various seminars the implications faith has on work and vocation. The cultural mandate in Genesis calls man to be fruitful, to multiply, to fill the earth, and to subdue it. From the very beginning scripture instructs people to work and to make culture- to teach, to practice medicine and law, to paint and play the trombone, to build bridges and develop better crops.  For Christians, this call to cultivate the earth makes no distinction between traditionally “secular” jobs and “ministry” jobs. Rather, we declare that the Christian can be a minister of Christ in nearly any work, participating in God’s work of redeeming all things.  What a beautiful image we see in Revelation 21, where every tear is wiped away and the new city of Jerusalem established in earth.

Not only did the Fellows benefit from such discussion in class, but we also had the privilege of putting education into practice in our jobs.  We contemplated the nature of God’s vocational calling on our lives and strived to be disciplined workers in our marketplace settings.

We spent a week in New Orleans joining hands with the local church, in its effort to rebuild a broken community. We heard from brothers and sisters like Amy Sherman and Dr. John Perkins who have devoted their lives to showing mercy and seeking justice for the oppressed. We also spent a week in New York discussing what role art plays in communicating truth and beauty.

Family has been an integral element of the Fellows year. Nine months ago a bunch of recent college graduates parked their cars in front of a bunch of Trinity family homes and unloaded all their belongings. At that moment, whether we realized it or not, we became a member of families who had decided to love and care for us before they even knew us.  These host families welcomed us into their lives, sharing the nice and neat parts along with the nitty and gritty.

Living in a home, spending intimate time with the other Fellows, and involving ourselves in the local church have all shaped an understanding of Christian community that goes beyond an affinity group.  The Kingdom is no affinity group, but rather a gathering of every tribe, every nation, every race.

The Trinity community has blessed the Fellows in innumerable ways-  many of you have invested in the program by mentoring and teaching us, by giving us shelter or jobs, or by sending your kids to youth group.

It truly is a comprehensive experience.

I have come to grasp a fuller understanding of what it means to be stewards of Creation, agents of redemption, and image-bearers of God.

Parable of talents

Worldview, engaging culture, biblical foundation

Now let us love mercy for the needy and justice for the oppressed and let us bear truth and see beauty and let our hearts grow for creation and creating and Christ is in all and Christ is all amen.

New Orleans

By Andrew Simmons and Jenny Fearnow One of us was recently in a staff meeting in which a supervisor asked, “Y’all took a N’awlins trip recently, didn’cha? I don’t know why people keep going down there. It’s just gonna flood again.” Yes, people are indeed still going down to the Crescent City after Katrina’s second, and more catastrophic, landfall on August 29th, 2005. So, why? Will our visits realistically change anything?

This thought occurred to at least we two, and likely more, of the Trinity Fellows and U. Va. Students from Reformed University Fellowship who made the trek to the Big Easy from Jan. 3 to 10 of this year. As we both hope to convey, the Lord’s kingdom made strong advances in New Orleans during that first week of 2009.

In addressing change, one must assume there is a pre-existing need. In New Orleans, people are still hurting: emotionally, physically, and mentally. Many have resigned themselves to apathy, tired of the long rebuilding process or extended unemployment. Some are still waiting for their houses to physically come off the 4-by-4 wood blocks that resemble a Jenga game. Driving through the now-famous Ninth Ward, we saw no street signs and no attempts, on the part of the city government, to rebuild; however, people are resettling there, living amidst brokenness.

The combination of compelling, audacious rebuilding and the seeming big-picture futility of it in the face of such wide destruction could cause one to question their usefulness there. And in some sense that is true - God is the only one that will bring about real peace and restore in our hearts a hope for it. In this respect, our very presence was an act of trust in God to work his sovereign good will to restore his people.

But we do get to play an integral part: as believers, we are called to bring peace to the city and reconciliation to hurt and brokenness. “…That is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us,” says Paul in II Corinthians 5:19-20. God has made us ministers of his peace for His Kingdom. If we understood anything from being in NOLA, it was that lasting change comes only through the catholic Church. Members of RUF at the University of Virginia along with the Fellows, Redeemer PCA (Pastor Ray Cannata’s church), and the Annunciation Mission joined together to declare the gospel in word and deed within the Broadmoor district of New Orleans. Our short-term work projects meant nothing except in that they were rooted in the local church which could further a long-term relationship with community members.

By tearing up tile, scraping and painting, caulking and gutting, raking and pressure-washing, we participated in incarnational ministry. We did realistically change something. Sure, some benefits are visible even now. We gave a couple from the community leak-proof windows and a pleasant entryway. But some may not be for some time. We helped connect this same couple with the local church. Long-time development practitioner and Vice President for International Program Strategy at World Vision International Bryant Myers says that the Church is critical to genuine social transformation, “It is hard to imagine sustainable transformation without churches committed to soul care [development of personal faith] and social care [helping the poor and correcting injustices].” This truth was borne out in our own experience – the other groups we encountered aiding in reconstruction were, by a huge majority, evangelical groups of believers working in partnership with a local church.

So, to our surprise, there is indeed hope in New Orleans. This hope is found in a personal God who chooses to work through the local church and the Christians there that believe in His promises of restoration. We must remember that this applies not only to New Orleans, but to Charlottesville, as well. The church is the arm of God ministering real and lasting peace to its community. New Orleans, as that supervisor suggested it might, is indeed experiencing another flood – one of vital and engaged Gospel work that labors in the nitty-gritty of everyday life, not in spite of, but because of the imminent arrival of the Kingdom. So when the good times roll, know that the church is there.

If you want more information about the New Orleans trip or other service opportunities the Fellows are involved in please email me at jennyfearnow@gmail.com and/or check out our NOLA pictures on the Trinity Fellows Blog at www.trinityfellowsprogram.blogspot.com. Also check out the RUF website and pictures at www.uva.ruf.org

Common Grounds Post- "A True Portrait is Never Pretty"

Our greatest desire is to be fully known and fully accepted.  Deep down we want someone to see us for who we are- the beautiful with the ugly- and neither balk in disgust nor mistake us for something we are not, something better with fewer blemishes and flaws.  And yet, we fear the fulfillment of the very thing we desire.  Our greatest fear is to be known, found out, rejected.  Out of this fear we build up defenses like walls, hiding our weakness, preventing anyone from really knowing us at all.  We are like shopkeepers that put mannequins in the window, clean projections of the person we would rather people see (confident, attractive, sociable, interesting, etc), all the while keeping the shop door locked tight, carefully keeping the ugly reality of our imperfect lives out of sight.

As a portrait artist, the goal of my paintings is to subvert this practice of building defenses, and instead create a conversation with the viewer that is open and honest. You look at the person on the canvas and they look right back at you. Hopefully there is intimacy in that moment of examination.  Maybe it is because the person in the canvas never looks away.  You can look and look, critiquing every wrinkle and zit, but the subject has no shame.

 I recently had a show that consisted of a bunch of portraits of folks I know from around Charlottesville. At one point I stood up and made a brief artist’s statement, which pretty much began like the first paragraph above, talking about lowering our guard and allowing ourselves to be known.  I talked about how the bright colors were meant to represent each subject’s character and affirm their dignity as image-bearers of God.  A question came from the back of the room, “Why don’t you have any self-portraits up, and if you did, what colors would they be?” 

Uh.

Er.

I, uh.

I half jokingly replied that putting a self-portrait on the wall for the entire world to examine would demand that I unlock the “shop door” and let people in.  But seriously. It is much easier to talk about not being so guarded than to take an honest look at oneself and stop pretending.  I will hang up a portrait of a friend and subject them to public scrutiny long before I will subject myself.  Why? Because even if you tell me you won’t reject me, my mind says, “you don’t know what I know.” 

So what’s the solution- how do we get over the fear of exposure? The answer is certainly not  try harder.  Rather, I think the answer has to do with resting, resting in the promises of the God “to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid.” This is the gospel: that God walks into a gallery, sees your face on the wall- knows every bit from the surface right on through to the core- and is utterly mesmerized by the beauty.  He may as well be looking into a mirror.  We are utterly known and profoundly accepted.   

A Fellows Rendez-Vous

by Hayley Taylor & Wilson Whitaker Location: Revolutionary Soup Agenda: Celebrate our Two Week Anniversary of Togetherness

An auspicious beginning, to be sure. Yet this anniversary shadowed a different, though no less important, landmark in our year: we have now completed an entire five-day work week with our new employers.

While our soup was full of Revolutionary zeal, we discovered that many of our work lives bear little resemblance to the passionate longing many of us brought to the table only weeks ago: a hope to change the world, a longing to make a difference. Throughout our varied work experiences, one common thread emerged: making a difference is taking a different shape than what we once expected. Instead of idealistic activism, we begin to change the world each morning in front of a filing cabinet at 9 a.m. sharp.

But perhaps this is a chance to remember Who it is we are serving, in both the mundane and the adventureful -- the ordinary and the breathtaking. Just perhaps this isn't about the ideas we can generate or the policies we can revamp but about the people we can serve and the love that we can give. In fact, perhaps it's not even about "we" or "me" but "Him" and "them." Just perhaps.

Happy Anniversary.

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. Colossians 3:23-24

Transforming Futures for Trinity Fellows

by Reynolds Chapman When I graduated from college I don’t think I fully grasped how much power had been given to me. In fact, since power was a negative concept in my mind, I probably played down my social, professional, political, and spiritual capacities out of some false humility. And although I had gained knowledge and tools to dive head-first into the “real world,” I lacked a robust framework for engaging with it as Christ would have me. As I reflect on the past year spent in the Trinity Fellows Program, I see how it helped me recognize the power I have been given, and how God is forming me to steward it for His Kingdom.

In his book Power and Passion, Samuel Wells says “…those in power do no good by failing to realize the power they have. Power is not wrong or bad or inherently corrupt; it is given for a purpose – to reflect the truth, to set people free – and only becomes sinister when it is not used for the purpose for which it has been given.” Perhaps one of the greatest challenges of the Church in America is our unwillingness to be honest about the influence and agency we have. We can understand why - a denial of power allows for a denial of responsibility. What the Fellows Program seeks to do is catch Christians at that fork in the road where they can either treat their gifts as inadequate, irrelevant, or even non-existent, or they can use them to engage God’s world.

This vision is built on a theological foundation established in the seminary classes we take. In our Biblical studies courses, the recurring theme of humiliation before exultation was implanted in our hearts and minds. Centered on Christ, who “made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant…becoming obedient unto death, even death on a cross,” we saw how our lives in the Church, our communities, our families, and at our jobs should take the form of service and humility. We saw that our power and privileges are not for our own personal peace and affluence, but are to be channeled as a blessing to the world in the name of Jesus Christ. In our cultural engagement courses we dug deeper into what the world looks like and the specifics about how theology translates into society. These classes challenged our assumptions, and helped transform us to view the world in a Christ-like manner.

Our discussions of theology and cultural engagement became practical in our workplace internships. One of the chief aims of the fellows program is bridging the divide between the sacred and secular – affirming that worship not only occurs when we gather together at the end of Fontaine Avenue, but also when we’ve been sitting at an office in front of a computer for three hours and we still have five hours to go. We saw that in God’s Kingdom, the value of someone who works in financial consulting, or someone who cleans houses for a living, is equal to a pastor or missionary. We were also able to engage our community by tutoring low-income students at Abundant Life, which allowed us a brief departure from our privileged lifestyle and granted us a snapshot into a community neglected and overlooked by most of Charlottesville.

As we affirmed the importance of engaging the world, it was indispensable to see that without the Church, any of our pursuits in this world are meaningless. In America, where we worship the gods of status, wealth, and security, the Church becomes an afterthought. We operate under the rule that when we’re working sixty hours a week, there’s just not time to go to a church prayer meeting or to pursue accountability with our brothers or sisters in Christ. But being plugged into the Church was invaluable this year, especially for many of us who are going into the marketplace. We were welcomed with open doors and open arms by our host families, who were willing to take a stranger into their home for a whole year. We had the opportunity to serve the youth in the Church, while being served in many ways by our mentors and the host of Church members and those on staff who spoke with us and prayed for us.

Before doing the Fellows Program, I would have asked “Wouldn’t a weekend-long conference on faith and work be sufficient and effective?” After doing the Fellows Program, I would answer no to this. This year has not taught me ideas, but has rather given me a community and experiences that have transformed me to see the purpose of the gifts God has given me. On behalf of the 2007-2008 class, thanks to Trinity Presbyterian Church, and may God bless the incoming fellows as they embark on this journey together.

Home Sweet Home

By: Austin Johnston

I pulled into the driveway of a home in Charlottesville, and took a deep breath before walking up to the porch and ringing the doorbell. The door opened and I saw the family for the first time and realized how nervous I was. What if they didn’t like me? What if they were strange people? What if…?

I had never met these people, and they had never met me, but they volunteered to let me live in their home for the next 9 months. I appreciated their generosity at allowing a stranger to come be a part of their family life. Yes, they had read my 12 page application (which included some pretty detailed stories about me), but they still didn’t really know who I was. The first few days were awkward as we started to get to know one another, but we soon all became more at ease and I began to fit into their family a little better.

From discussions about philosophy and daily life at the dinner table on family nights to watching lots of movies to celebrating birthdays with a special orange pastry for breakfast (a tradition I was happy to partake of), life with my host family gave me glimpse into another world. Most people only experience two families, the one they grow up in and the one they form when they grow up and start their own. I have gotten a chance for a third family, one that is not related to me biologically, but which gives me a chance to see how a different group of people live together. This family is similar to my own yet is also very different, and this gives me a great perspective.

My host family just does some things differently. I thought that everyone did things a certain way, but that is not the case. They have a different policy for doing the dishes. They have different eating habits. They have a cat. I realized that not every family has to look identical to work well. Once you see from the inside how another family works, it makes you think and evaluate the way you live and the choices you make about basic things like laundry and cleaning the bathroom, how to handle conflict, and even the activities the family does together.

What a valuable experience! It is one I will treasure and hopefully it will continue to shape the way I think about family and living with others for the rest of my life.

Finding Life on Thursday Afternoons

Written by: Mariko Schaper Every Thursday we go to Johnson Elementary school. We go there to participate with Abundant Life Ministries. It’s an after school program that provides tutoring for kids among other things. The majority of the kids that go to Johnson Elementary are from the Prospect Ave neighborhood and Blue Ridge Common Apartments. Some of the students come from some really great families, but some come from broken homes. One of the boys was telling me about him hanging out with his father, who is out of jail for the 4th time; another said he’s never seen his father, while another said that their family is moving because they are scared to go outside due to the shootings that happen in the neighborhood. Despite what the students’ family lives are like, they all have something in common…they need lovin’ from us.

The boy that I tutor is 8 years old and his name is Ahmad. He is in the second grade. I remember the first couple of weeks that we started tutoring. The first day he was so apathetic and bragging about not caring whether or not he repeated the 2nd grade. He had to be pulled aside over and over to be talked to by Miss Kerra, one of the directors. But he just didn’t care. Anytime that he wouldn’t want to do something, he would totally and completely shut down. He wouldn’t do his work, he wouldn’t listen to anything that I would say or respond in any way. All he would do was sit there staring at the wall and ignore me. Some of the women running the program were talking about whether or not Ahmad could stay in the program because he wasn’t doing anything or making any progress.

…but that was in the beginning.

Now, he has been doing absolutely awesome. Ahmad wants to do his homework and the enrichment activities. They make him feel good about himself because he does well and learns from them. He talks to me about his weekend, about school, about lots of things. The kids got their report cards a couple weeks ago, and he was so excited to show me his. He got all really exceptional marks, they don’t do the whole A,B,C thing, like back in my day…haha I sound old. But anyways…he showed me his report card…and then Ahmad said something with such enthusiasm that almost made me cry in front of him…

“I’m going to the 3rd grade.”

He continued to say that after that he’s going to go to 4th then 5th, then middle school. He was so excited he hopped out of his chair, ran over to his cousin and said the same thing.

It has been so amazing tutoring him and spending time with the Abundant Life kids. I love going early and just running around and playing with them. The girls are hilarious playing tag and I just love dancing around with them. They are some of the most affectionate kids as well. They always want you to catch them, hug them, hang on your back or shoulders, jump on you…hold their hands. We took them for pizza and ice skating a while ago, and it was interesting to see their vulnerability especially on the ice. Though they were on the ice, their hard exteriors and the walls that they had up began melting away as they needed us and trusted us to help them.

I definitely have seen redemption in all of this and so much of God’s grace and love. It has been such a blessing to be able to be in these kids’ lives. To be able to let them know that they don’t have to be angry all the time; that people care about them; that doing well and working hard is awesome. The banquet that was held for them was quite stellar. They were brought into a room filled with several hundreds of people clapping and cheering for them for doing well. They were all dressed up and sang some Christmas carols after dinner and it was adorable. We were so blessed to be able to see them there and to serve them.

“The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus” - 1 Timothy 1:14 …for this I am ridiculously thankful, but because it was poured out abundantly, means it should overflow into the lives of others around me. “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” - John 10:10…Jesus came so we could have life, despite the fact that we so do not deserve it…freakin awesome!

These kids are meant to have a life abundant because of Jesus. It is amazing to think that we’ve had the blessing to be a little tiny part in that by just sharing God’s love with them.