The congregation, which celebrated 100 years of ministry in May, sponsors programs like the Westminster Food Bank, Christ Kitchen, Christ Clinic, Westminster House, Homework Helpers and the Boy Scouts.
Mission funding from the Presbytery of the Inland Northwest helps keep the church operating.
Rick Ufford-Chase, moderator of the 216th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), visited Westminster church last month to learn about its ministry to the struggling neighborhood.
He was in Spokane, a city of 196,000 people in the Pacific Northwest, to kick off the moderator’s annual tour of U.S.missions. The itinerary included stops in Spokane; Seattle; Yakima, WA; Wapato, WA; and Sitka, AK.
The tour, on which Ufford-Chase was accompanied by the Rev. Curtis Kearns, director of the PC(USA)’s National Ministries Division, began earlier at nearby Presbyterian-related Whitworth College.
There the moderator met with professors, students and Whitworth president William P. Robinson to discuss the school’s holistic approach to student discipleship.
During his recent Sunday visit to Westminster church, the much traveled Ufford-Chase worshiped with the congregation and shared details of recent trips to the Congo, Peru, the San Francisco Mission District and the Hurricane Katrina battered Gulf Coast.
The moderator learned about a church-sponsored food bank that was Spokane’s first when Westminster Presbyterian opened it in 1972 and which is now the flagship of the 22-outlet Second Harvest network of food banks across the city.
Ufford-Chase heard about how the outreach program led to other mission initiatives such as Christ Clinic, established by the church 14 years ago. Now more than 15 doctors volunteer their time serving those in the neighborhood who have no medical insurance.
Individuals, churches and grants support the facility where doctors pray with patients as part of their care.
To reach out to the mostly unemployed women who frequented the clinic, volunteer Jan Martinez founded Christ Kitchen, a small business that packages and sells food baskets around Spokane. Proceeds help pay the women’s minimum wage salaries.
The aim is to assist homeless, abused, poor or disenfranchised women in rising out of poverty by providing them with the professional, personal and spiritual essentials to stand on their own.
“It’s a place for women who have been through domestic violence, poverty, drug and alcohol addictions, where they can go and learn about God,” said Allie, who works at Christ Kitchen.
The Christ Kitchen ministry, which currently involves 35 women, has grown steadily since its modest beginnings in the kitchen of Westminster church where it started with only five women.
The program recently received a $220,000 grant from Presbyterian Women and is on the hunt for an expanded commercial kitchen, retail storefront and catering business.
Just up the street at Westminster House young adult volunteers are engaged in neighborhood mission by offering Bible study and after school programs.
Under the program, three to five volunteers — usually graduates of Whitworth College — commit to spend one year living in the house while working part time and engaging in community ministry part time.
“The idea is that as you minister to the kids in the neighborhood you would be drawing them into the church,” said Paige McIlraith, chair of the Westminster House board. “So it’s not just about bringing them into Westminster House just for the sake of getting the kids or just meeting their friends. The idea is to filter families and children into the church.”
Current “house missioners” Stephanie Blumhagen, Jessica Chapman, Jason Duba and Brandon Pickering help with the Logos children’s program, Homework Helpers, Boy Scouts, worship and Bible studies.
Ufford-Chase later participated in a commissioning service for the missioners of whom he asked about their experiences in reaching out to West-Central Spokane.
Missioners told the moderator that the house has become a safe place for neighborhood children where they can study scripture, get help with schoolwork or munch on a snack.
“It’s really huge, the scope of the effort that we have here,” said Pickering, a 21-year-old Whitworth College senior who moved into the house last August. “We have to narrow it down to a few kids that we can really minister to and make a difference in their lives because you can’t change the neighborhood in one year. You’ll get discouraged if you try to work on a large scale.”
Missioners told the moderator that the house also serves as a drop-in center for people needing help, a retreat center for churches and urban ministry experience for Whitworth students.
Several of the more than 40 students who have served at the house have gone onto various types of ministry — as pastors, overseas missionaries and seminary students.
“It’s good being involved,” said Jessica Chapman, who graduated from Whitworth in May. “It’s helped me realize the importance of people. I’ve already grown spiritually and personally from it. I’ve learned so much from the kids in the neighborhood.”
With Homework Helpers the missioners tutor first to fourth graders twice a week as part of the program coordinated by Doris Liebert, a retired professor at Whitworth.
Her husband, Don, a sociologist, has driven a church bus to pick up children for the Logos program after school.The couple was on hand for the moderator’s visit to Westminster House.
“People give what they have,” Don Liebert said during the meeting. “It’s a wonderful, wonderful ministry.”
First Presbyterian churches in Spokane, Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls and Whitworth Presbyterian Church help fund Westminster House. The ministry also receives presbytery support and the missioners chip in earnings from their part-time jobs.
Ufford-Chase said he was impressed with programs like Westminster House and other similar programs he visited during the six-day tour, which had a young adult focus.
“What you have is a program where folks are committed to the people who are most at risk in the community and that’s what being church should be all about,” said Ufford-Chase, an elder at Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson, AZ.
Later the moderator visited Community Presbyterian Church in Wapato for dinner with the Native American Youth Outreach Program, which holds weekly meetings to assist disadvantaged youth.
The program benefited from a PC(USA) Mission Development Resource Committee Specialized Grant.
Also while in Washington, Ufford-Chase visited with young adult volunteers in Seattle to examine after-school programs and held discussions with Seattle Presbytery members.
Meanwhile in Sitka, Ufford-Chase worshiped with students and faculty at Presbyterian-related Sheldon Jackson College. He held a question-and-answer session and toured the campus. He also visited a Young Adult Volunteer site at First Presbyterian Church in Sitka. |
