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Congregation builds relationships with New Day Center adults

January 28, 2015 / By UNY Communications / .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

By Sandra Brands*

The congregation of East Rochester UMC and the New Day Center adults shared a meal together with family and friends just before Thanksgiving. Photos by Stephen J. HustedtFor years, the East Rochester United Methodist Church leased its basement to a day care center. The congregation had hoped to build a relationship with the day care personnel, its children and families.

“We soon realized that was not going to be possible,” said church Lay Leader Jim Coleman. “The owner of the day care made it perfectly clear that his day care needed to remain secular.”

So, for 15 years the congregation had little interaction with its renters.

When the day care’s lease expired recently the congregation had to make a choice: enter into another “strictly business” relationship or seek out something more meaningful. At that point, the Rev. Todd Goddard, pastor at the East Rochester UMC, asked the congregation, “How are we going to use this church to build the church of Jesus Christ?”

“We came to a fork in the road,” Coleman said. “You would think for a congregation that struggles (from) time to time financially, it would have been a no-brainer to take the route that promised more money. But we took the fork in the road we believed God intended us to take, helping people who may not be as capable as you are and treating them with the same dignity and respect you give others.

“It’s part of the mission of the Church to go out and make disciples for Christ,” he said.

Building Christ’s Church

“As we looked at our congregation,” Goddard said, “we realized there were 90 individuals who have worked with or have family members in the disability community. Personally, I have a 17-year-old son with autism.”

At first, Goddard said, his son’s autism shook his faith and turned his life upside down. “It has taken the rest of my life to understand that each of us is made in God’s image – and God calls that very good.”

It also gave him insight into the needs and joys of the families of those with disabilities.

“I see in my own son that he is perfect,” Goddard said. “My life has gone from despair to realizing how blessed I am to have my son in my life. Other families have the same experience.”

Rev. Todd Goddard speaks prior to a shared meal between East Rochester UMC and the New Day Center.
Photo by Stephen J. HustedtWith that in mind, the East Rochester UMC invited the leaders of Heritage Christian Services to consider creating an adult rehabilitation center in the now vacant basement. Goddard said in reaching out to Heritage Christian Services the congregation made it clear that it did not want to be in a landlord-tenant relationship.

“Our goal,” he said, “is to be partners. We’re in this together.”

Leaders from Heritage Christian Services liked what they saw, and after agreeing on a monthly rental fee, renovated the basement, changing it from a place for children to a place for adults. The New Day Center opened Sept. 1, 2014, and already there has been significant interaction between the congregation and the center’s participants.

“We’ve been working together to provide meaningful, purposeful activities for the developmentally disabled,” Goddard said.

That includes textile sorting parties twice a week that prepare used clothing for collection by recycling agencies, weekly Bible studies, and working together on a chicken barbeque fundraiser.

The New Day Center adults have also learned to bake. Every Friday morning they prepare bread for the weekly Communion services held at East Rochester UMC.

“It’s really kind of cool,” Coleman said. “You come in on Sunday morning and there’s a fresh little round loaf of bread waiting for us. It’s not unusual now for some of our congregation to go down and bake with them.”

According to Coleman, the staff at Christian Heritage Services are eager to get the adults in their day care program involved in even more activities. “They’ve started to talk to us about this summer, about taking care of our lawn and putting in a garden. These opportunities benefit both of us.”

Church vitality is built on relationships

For Goddard, this new connection is a way for the congregation of East Rochester UMC, with its long history of mission work in Telica, Nicaragua, to bring mission home.

The Rev. Todd Goddard, middle, celebrates the building of a new home for a mother and her seven children in Telica, Nicaragua. East Rochester United Methodist Church’s relationship with the people of Telica began over 10 years ago and is part of the church’s mission outreach.
Submitted photo“Not everyone connects with foreign mission,” Goddard said. “The church is very small and has been through hard times. Those who could not find a niche with the Nicaragua mission were kind of left out.”

With the new relationship being built between the congregation and the adult day center, Goddard hopes Heritage Christian Services will take part in preparations for the next mission trip to Telica, planned for 2016. That preparation includes packing suitcases full of clothing and medical supplies for distribution to families in Telica, and preparing the missionary meal for the commissioning of those traveling to Central America.

That hope is not unfounded.

“I don’t know what the church background is of the individuals at Heritage Christian Center, but I can tell you they’ve become a part of our church,” Coleman said.

“I think it’s very important for us to live out what’s proclaimed on Sunday the other six days of the week,” Goddard said. “That means being friends and inviting people into a relationship with Jesus Christ. That comes with developing friendships over time, investing ourselves – our money, our attention, our time – in people who may have different values, different beliefs, (and) different abilities.”

For the developmentally disabled community, that invitation is a new experience. Goddard said some of the families now attending the East Rochester UMC have been rejected by eight different faith communities because congregations were unable to cope with those differently enabled.

“We hope to be an oasis where we are accepting and we try to practice what we say on Sunday,” he said. “That means (building) relationships and being willing to learn about people who are different.”

Vitality in a church comes down to relationships, Goddard said, and the East Rochester UMC has spent years building relationships with the people of Telica. Now, they are building relationships with those in their own backyard.

“It’s still pretty new for the congregation, this journey,” said Goddard. “It is a very difficult journey, but it’s an important journey and I believe it’s one the church can and should embrace. My goal is to have this growing, vital community of faith by the time I retire.

“The Spirit blows where it will. I feel like the partnership with Heritage Christian Center is the Spirit blowing,” he said.

 *Sandra Brands is a freelance writer with ties to the Upper New York Conference.