Jubilee Covenant Program Launched
Episcopal News Service. January 10, 1985 [85002]
DETROIT (DPS, Jan. 10) -- The Diocese of Michigan and the National Mission in Church and Society unit at the Episcopal Church Center have entered into a pilot covenant as part of the ongoing Jubilee Ministry program.
In the first year of the agreement, which will serve as a model for others, the Diocese will receive $25,000 in Jubilee funds to help congregationally-based programs being developed through its Joint Committee for Ministry with the Poor. The Rev. Canon Edward B. Geyer, Jr., executive for National Mission in Church and Society, and his assistant, the Rev. Richard Gary, came to the Diocesan Center here to join Bishop H. Coleman McGehee, Jr. in signing the covenant.
The terms of the partnership are open-ended. The national Church money is not earmarked for a specific location, as are grants from the Coalition for Human Needs and the U.T.O. It is more like Federal revenue sharing with state governments in that the diocese's Joint Committee for Ministry with the Poor is free to use the money in ways the group feels it can do the most good in terms of local needs seen close at hand.
"Ministry with the Poor will be in touch with 72 congregations in poverty areas, both urban and town and country, during the next few months," says John Bennett, McGehee's assistant. "We're looking for churches where a little enabling will get a program going.
"Some of the money may be used for leadership training where people want to engage in a ministry but need to learn how to go about it. There may also be ways that we can use our Jubilee Centers, bringing in people from other churches to observe and learn from their experience."
The Episcopal Church's Jubilee Program grew out of proposals brought to the General Convention in 1982 from a variety of sources. As finally approved, the program, called the Jubilee Ministry, sought to meld monetary and ministerial resources of the Church in a renewed emphasis toward working with the poor. The structure aims to develop, fine-tune and share advocacy and service programs that have emerged from local and regional needs with small amounts of seed money and an extensive education effort.
Geyer, whose unit oversees the program, has admitted that its implementation has been slow; however, those involved in the new agreement hope that the covenant model will help to spur the program on. In effect, the Diocese of Michigan is doing the actual programming, closely relating it to grass-roots needs.
"Too often national grants go to the best-organized agencies where the staff has the most expertise in writing grant applications," says Bennett.
In return for the funds received, the diocese promises to share with the National Mission unit its experiences in the hope that these may be helpful around the country.