Impact Creation in Virginia and North Carolina
Impact Creation in Virginia: A Missional Snowball Effect Operationalized as Reciprocity
While planning the opening kick-off dinner for the Virginia community craft collaborative cohort, Liz Howze asked the planning committee to recommend a speaker for the evening who exemplified social innovation, impact creation, and imagination within their local community. The overwhelming response was, “Garry ‘Gee Mac’ Thomas McCollum.” Garry is a native Virginian, author, entrepreneur, community leader, veteran, philanthropist, and minister at First Baptist Bute Street in Norfolk, Va. His remarks on opening night, as we prepared to embark on this six-week learning journey, were rooted in the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37).
Through his preaching, practical wisdom, and storytelling, Minister McCollum - whose church was not among the original participants - challenged and inspired the audience to interrogate place, purpose, and possibilities on their journey to becoming agents of shalom. Invited to motivate and inspire others, the Spirit of the Lord showed up and shifted the atmosphere. Minister McCollum said that he was so impressed by what he heard and experienced on opening night, that he knew his church needed to join the cohort. He called his pastor and returned the next day to attend the training. Thus, First Baptist Bute St. became the fifth church to join the Virginia cohort.
We are excited to announce that Minister Garry ‘Gee Mac’ McCollum and Rev. Jerry Holmes, both community leaders from First Baptist Brute St., will operationalize Ormond’s recently coined “missional snowball effect” with a spirit of reciprocity. They will join the Ormond Center as plenary speakers during the October 15-17, 2023 Convocation & Pastors’ School at Duke Divinity School. This year’s theme is Growing Where You are Planted and the event will be held on October 15th-17th at Duke Divinity School. The Convocation & Pastors’ School is an intensive multi-day conference that offers lectures, worship, alumni gatherings, and seminars for Christian leaders of all traditions. In addition to the plenary session, the Ormond team will also lead a workshop entitled: Equipping Churches and Communities for Thriving.
Impact Creation in North Carolina: A Missional Snowball Effect Driven by Ingenuity
Chapel Hill Bible Church
Since graduating from the Durham/Chapel Hill cohort in December, 2022, Mary Moreton of Chapel Hill Bible Church (CHBC), has made it her mission to embed the insights and wisdom learned from CCC within her church. Her desire is to shift mindsets regarding ministry, in hopes that the pressing needs of the Chapel Hill community and intentional relationship building will lead to social innovation in their community.
In January 2022, Mary began hosting meetings with CHBC’s leadership team to cast a vision for developing and teaching a 6-week Sunday School class that will offer an adapted version of the community craft curriculum based on the human ecology framework. The inaugural Sunday school class starts this fall with an anticipated 50 participants, to include pastors and ministry leaders. Ormond will walk alongside Mary and her team to develop and launch this pilot curriculum. Our hope is that, together, we can create a practical, accessible resource that inspires renewed imagination and faith-informed action amongst local congregations throughout North Carolina and beyond. In Mary’s words, “Imagine what that would look like!”
Cole Mill Road Church of Christ
Cole Mill Road Church of Christ (CMRCC), also a member of the inaugural Durham/Chapel Hill CCC cohort, was the first graduating congregation to be invited to join Ormond’s Pathways Towards Impact process.
CRMCC joined the community craft collaborative learning journey hoping to gain clarity around their church’s deeply-rooted desire to repurpose underutilized property, assets, and resources for the good of the surrounding community and greater Durham. During the learning journey, CMRCC focused on the growing need for affordable housing in Durham, NC and listened closely to those who were affected by the consistent rising costs of living. By the conclusion of the journey, CMRCC was more determined to join God’s work of new creation in the here and now, citing Isaiah 65:17, 21-22.
Beginning in late March, the CMRCC learning and leadership team, the Ormond Center at Duke Divinity School, and the Wesley Community Development Corporation (Wesley CDC) began a process of discernment, discovery, resource-sharing, and mutually-beneficial learning. Earlier this month, we celebrated the completion of an in-depth co-branded asset analysis report that outlined the viable options for repurposing their church property. This work was commissioned through a unique Ormond-Wesley CDC alpha test partnership that provided the clarity needed to move forward towards innovative placemaking in Durham, NC.