A New Era by E.N. West

The Faith Land Initiative worked with the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd to build low-income housing on property owned by the church.

Article photos: stain glass of Holy Redeemer, Webster Groves, MO © Wampa One, flickr

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BY E.N. WEST

n 2015, Pope Francis stated, “We are not living an era of 1 change, but a change of era.”

This sentiment resonates across all denominations in the life of the Christian church. As generations of decline in religious affiliation, church membership, finances, and facilities’ maintenance catch up to congregations across the United States, questions arise: How did we get here? What is our place in society? Who are we called to be? What’s next? What’s possible? There is no shortage of crises in the world or need in our communities.

And there are many leaders, inside and outside our churches, with creative, innovative, and transformative ideas to positively change the world.

The Faith Land Initiative (FLI) of the Church Council of Greater Seattle was created for this moment. After a season of intentional listening with faith and community leaders across King County, Washington, my colleagues and I clearly heard different, but related, calls for support. We were operating within two distinct worlds. The first was the predominately and historically white congregations experiencing decline in their physical facilities, membership, and finances, who were asset rich but often lacked visions for their future. The other was communities of color, where there was tremendous vision but not as much access to capital, space, political will, and assets to bring their plans to fruition.

My colleagues and I realized the Church Council could be a bridge between these communities, showing each that the “other side” had what they needed. We launched the FLI pilot program in 2020 with the ideal to transform peoples’ relationships with one another, the wider community, and the land. Ultimately we aimed to bridge disparate communities such that radical acts of 1

Pope Francis, “Not an Era of Change but a Change of Era,” transcript of speech delivered at the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence, November 10, 2015, https://associationofcatholicpriests.ie/ not-an-era-of-change-but-a-change-of-era/.

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dignity restoration and community stewardship of land could happen all over the Puget Sound region—and we have done so!

We may be in unprecedented times, but with great change comes great opportunity. For faith communities, we need only look down and around to see ours. According to Enterprise Community Partners’ Faith-Based Development Initiative, faith-based organizations collectively own tens of thousands of 3 acres of underutilized and vacant land across the United States.

“We may be in unprecedented times, but with great change comes great opportunity.”

According to a report from Yale Climate Connections, the Catholic Church owns over 177 million acres of land across 4 the globe. Based on analysis by the City of Seattle, Office of Planning and Community Development, religious organizations 5 in the city own approximately 300 acres of land. From Rome to Washington State, its clear faith communities have land, lots of 2

“Dignity restoration” refers to a process based in restorative justice that centers people who are dispossessed, embracing their humanity and allowing them to determine appropriate restitution.

C.f. Bernadette Atuahene, We Want What’s Ours: Learning from South Africa’s Land Restitution Program (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 4.

3 Enterprise Community Partners, “Enterprise to Help Houses of Worship Build Homes with Wells Fargo Grant,” Enterprise, February 23, 2022, https://www.enterprisecommunity.org/news/enterprisehelp-houses-worship-build-homes-wells-fargo-grant.

4 YCC Team, “The Catholic Church’s Vast Landholdings Could Help Protect the Climate,” Yale Climate Connections, June 24, 2021, https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2021/06/the-catholic-churchsvast-landholdings-could-help-protect-the-climate/.

5 “Affordable Housing on Religious Organization Property,” Seattle Office of Planning and Community Development, Accessed October 22, 2024, https://www.seattle.gov/opcd/ current-projects/affordable-housing-on-religious-organizationproperty#background.

A M AT T E R O F S P I R I T

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“God is absolutely doing a new thing and now is the time to be a part of it.” seven months, gaining insight into the congregation’s values, creating a work plan, identifying accountability partners in the community, connecting them with BIPOC groups interested in land stewardship, The author, E (left), and one of the coexecutive directors of the and coaching them in preparation for Council, Joey Lopez, leading a Faith Land Initiative training. conversations with these groups about the house. it, and a moral responsibility to use it wisely.

Ultimately, TWOCSN’s vision for House of Constance At the Faith Land Initiative, we support faith communities and the church’s goal to transition the house aligned and the across Seattle and King County in faithfully and equitably congregation reached unanimous consensus in transferring the discerning the answer to what that means for us and our house to them. Today, the house is undergoing renovations so communities. For us, discernment is a season of faithfully and it can provide temporary and long-term housing, mutual aid, equitably engaging in listening, learning, taking action, and and community space for 8 to 10 BIPOC transgender women celebrating, with reflection incorporated throughout. and femmes.

Our discernment process is built on the frameworks of The story of the House of Constance is one example of 6 faith-rooted community organizing and anti-racism, informed many emerging from the Faith Land Initiative network. There by the mission, vision, and values of the faith community we are several faith communities moving steadily toward building are accompanying. However, while we may follow a process, affordable housing on their land, while others are considering there is no copy and paste template for discernment. Each new, creative uses for their existing space. Even more are early congregation’s process will look different, because each in their journey, moving through their discernment process congregation is unique. There are all kinds of possibilities for while listening to one another, their community, and God for transformative action! what the future holds.

The story of the House of Constance is an example of In Isaiah 43:19, God says, “I am about to do a new thing; one such transformative act. In 2022, our team supported now it springs forth; do you not perceive it?” This moment in a Mennonite church in Seattle in gifting an 8-bedroom, $2 our “change of eras” may feel like the wilderness and desert million-dollar, house to the Trans Women of Color Solidarity in the life of the church. Many of us are not sure where we are Network (TWOCSN). The house, which had served the church going and the resources that have sustained our status quo are and larger community for 45 years as the Seattle home base drying up. However, in the face of those existential challenges, for the Mennonite Voluntary Service, was given as a reparative God is absolutely doing a new thing and now is the time to be act. The house is located at the edge of a historically Black a part of it. neighborhood, where there is historical evidence of exclusionary racial covenants.

E.N. West, affectionately known as E, proudly hails from the The congregation commissioned a team with the task of Washington, D.C. metropolitan area by way of Alexandria, Virginia. consulting with local BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people They graduated from William & Mary with dual degrees in American of color) community leaders on how the congregation could Studies and Government. E is the cofounder and lead organizer of transition the property, and they partnered with FLI to help guide the Faith Land Initiative at the Church Council of Greater Seattle. E them through that process. We met regularly for approximately deeply believes that “we are uninhibited when we know our power” 6

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For more information on faith-based community organizing, see the Summer 2023 issue of A Matter of Spirit (No. 138).

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and is committed to cocreating a world where everyone intimately knows how powerful they are and directs that power toward