Empowering people, creating communities aim of Pittsburgh Seminary grad’s mission work

Michael Stanton, right, with Quentin Allen Rue, a young man Open Hand Ministries works with through the Bloomfield Garfield Corporation's "Youth Works" program. In partnership with East Liberty Development Inc., the two were performing selective demolition on an abandoned 20-unit apartment building. Photo courtesy of Open Hand Ministries

Michael Stanton entered Pittsburgh Theological Seminary with a picture of ministry that consisted mostly of preaching from the pulpit and serving a congregation.

Yet by the time he graduated with a Master of Divinity degree in 2006, Stanton’s view had “radically changed.”

Being immersed in a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) seminary “really exposed me to a much wider, broader understanding of ministry,” said Stanton, who is currently engaged in the denomination’s ordination process. Pittsburgh Seminary taught “a more holistic approach to ministry” that stressed the importance of caring for people and responding to conditions, he said.

Armed with that understanding, Stanton answered a call to the urban mission field, and he and his wife bought a house in Pittsburgh’s challenged Garfield neighborhood. He also went to work for Hosanna Industries Inc., an agency whose mission centers on providing construction services as a way of alleviating poverty via new home construction and rehabilitation.

While at Hosanna Industries, Stanton homed in on the need to respond to social injustices that plague neighborhoods like the very one in Pittsburgh he lived in. “The calling I felt was that I was to participate in … to join in local churches to respond to social injustice and inequality that exists in our neighborhoods,” he said.

What Stanton learned from Hosanna led to his forming Open Hand Ministries in 2007. The agency provides low- and moderate-income families with the chance for affordable home ownership in Pittsburgh’s Garfield and East Liberty neighborhoods.

Through partnerships with churches, lenders, community development corporations, construction companies and client families, Open Hand not only rehabilitates property, but also empowers individuals to own and take charge of their homes.

Ultimately those actions change the neighborhood and “create a community,” said Stanton, who serves as the director of Open Hand Ministries.

Among the agency’s accomplishments in 2008 were partnering with East Liberty Development Inc. and volunteer church groups to gut three vacant properties in East Liberty, in preparation for rehabilitating the properties, and assisting Garfield Community Farm in converting vacant lots into green space dedicated to urban farming.

It’s about using “all of the gifts and resources that can sustain a community,” Stanton said.

The Pittsburgh Seminary alum admits that what he does is especially a challenge since he came to the ministry with no background in real estate or community development. In many ways “I am lacking the tools,” he said.

Yet at the same time, “I think that that’s a critical call of the goal of creating community,” Stanton said.

“I am not capable of doing this myself,” he said. “Therefore, I need others to join me.”

For more information on Open Hand Ministries, email Michael Stanton or call (412) 400-7253.