Urban ministry
CBF field personnel, church partner to minister in historic Atlanta neighborhood
S
itting just off Interstate 20, Atlanta’s Grant Park
Jen, below center, and Trey Lyon, opposite left center, were commissioned as CBF field personnel in 2011. They now serve in the Grant Park neighborhood of Atlanta.
neighborhood is home to the city’s famous zoo, a Civil
War museum, a sprawling park, historic Victorian mansions and the city’s oldest cemetery. Also sitting amongst the dense trees of this urban neighborhood is Park Avenue Baptist Church. In the 1920s, the church moved to its current location on the edge of the park and has watched the neighborhood change dramatically in the decades since.
Starting in the late ’90s, gentrification took hold in Grant Park, creating a divide in the community and a rise in cultural tension. Today, the middle and upper class residents live next door to those living in poverty, and they rarely connect with each other. “Community members pass each other like ships in the night, where they are only interacting at big community events or when there are acts of crime to be addressed,” said Trey Lyon, one of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s field personnel who serves with his wife, Jen, in Grant Park. The church building, a sprawling brick structure of nearly 45,000 square feet, is one of the largest in the neighborhood. Church leaders and members, along with the Lyons, see the potential fellowship!
April/May 2013
|
11