PRACTICE AND POLICY LECTURE SERIES, NOVEMBER 2009 û WHY THE FAITH-BASED COMMUNITY SHOULD BE INVOLVED IN HUMAN SERVICES: STORIES OF COMPASSION

Connie Schlittler: ...us today about why the faith community should be involved in human services and he's going to do it through presentation, but also some stories. So let's welcome Doctor Michelson.

Doctor Marty Michelson: Let's make sure my lapel mike is working. It sounds like it is. Is it? Very good. Then I can, not stand up here the entire time. What a privilege to have this opportunity to be with you and how wonderful to hear this story that Shannon just shared with us about what Wiz Kids does. I very much believe in the fact that public policy agents, issues and things that come out of the government make a difference for the common good, and I also believe that faith-based initiative make a difference as well, whether that's through the synagogue, the mosque or the church.
 
Faith-based initiatives have a role to play, and one of the things I'd like to emphasize in the context of the stories and the information that I'll be sharing today is the idea that the church, the synagogue, the mosque and the government: there are differences between how they operate. There are differences between how they are funded and how they get their resources. We need to understand those differences, but at the same time we need to act on our commonalities. 

And we need to act toward the common good of helping people in our world, helping people be restored to new forms of life. Now, I was tasked with the idea of opening up a dialogue and why the faith community should be involved in human services, and was asked to bring to you compassionate stories about real people who have struggled with basic needs in our community, and I didn't think there was any more appropriate way that I can do that than to invite with me to share their stories some of my friends. 

I have the opportunity to serve in a local church congregation, Penn Avenue Church of the Nazarene and at Oklahoma City Compassion, and in that opportunity I work with a couple of pastors that I'm going to introduce very quickly. Pastor Richard Bond is back here in the back and Pastor Joe Hall. And pastors Richard Bond and Joe Hall, they really are on the front lines of serving people. I get the opportunity to be the spokesperson today, but they represent the people that meet people on the street and from the street and make a difference in their lives. And what I believe is, I believe that churches, pro-social institutions in neighborhoods, within local communities, have the opportunity to extend a unique kind of hope to people. 

In fact, the truth of the matter is, it's probably the case that the government has more physical resources. The government has more monetary resources, but I believe that churches, synagogues, mosques, people of faith in their local communities, the innumerable number of people have the opportunity to extend hope. And let me share this story with you just before my friend, Patrick Sutton, shares his story. 

This story comes from William Bucholtz, a medical doctor and it's reported from 1996. William says this: "As I ate breakfast one morning, I overheard two oncologists conversing. One complained bitterly, 'You know, Bob, I just don't understand it. We use the same drugs, the same dosage, the same schedule and the same entry criteria, yet I get 22% response rate and you got a 74% response rate. That's unheard of for metastatic cancer. How do you do it?' His colleague replied, 'We're both using etoposide, platinum, Oncavin and hydroxyurea. You call yours EPOH. I tell my patients I'm giving them H-O-P-E. Hope. As dismal as the statistics are, I emphasize that we have a chance.'" My friend, Patrick Sutton, is going to share his story.

Patrick Sutton: Hi. My name is Patrick, and it's a humbling honor to have this opportunity to come before you guys, today, and share my story, of how a person with compassion has shaped my life - my life for hope. Although it seems like a lifetime ago, it was only three years ago that I was living in a full-blown condition of (inaudible). Very briefly, I'd like to tell you how I got to that point. 

In October of 2004, my wife of ten years left and took $12,000 out of my company bank account. This caused me serious financial difficulties and facing many returned checks and depression of my wife leaving, I decided at that time that I would commit suicide. I took 80 phenobarbital tablets and I parked my truck behind our barn where no one would find me. 

My sister, whom I'd not seen or talked to in two years, for some reason that day felt that it was necessary that she get a hold of me. When I wouldn't answer my phone, she drove to my house and not being able to... me not answering the door, she decided... she was getting ready to leave, decided at that time to check behind the barn, and there she found me.
 
After a short stay in a crisis center, I was back facing all of the problems that I was facing before I attempted this. It was then that I was introduced to crack cocaine and I liked it, and before I knew it, my life was totally out of control. Within six months I'd lost everything and I was living in my truck and spending all of my time doing anything I could to get high, day after day, week after week, month after month. 

I was living for a high but it always felt empty. This continued for the next two and a half years. I had gotten to a point where I didn't care if I lived or died, and I wasn't suicidal anymore, because I knew that wouldn't work, so I just lacked the meaning. I had no hope, no hope whatsoever. It was at this time that someone told me about Tenth and Penn.
 
At OKC Compassion you could eat there for free. I needed food and I started there going there for lunch when I needed food. Each meal I ate satisfied my appetite, but I also began to meet persons who had more than what I had. They had hope. I listened to them and they shared with me, and they showed care for me. 

It was through listening to the persons at OKC Compassion, that their kindness and grace, that I started to see that it was possible to get out of my addiction. I was receiving more than food for my needs. I was receiving hope for my addiction. 

I had Pastor Bond and asked him if I could help around the ministry and sleep in my truck in the parking lot at the church. I began participating in the activities around OKC Compassion every time the doors were open. On Wednesday night on October 2007, Pastor Bond shared with me a new possibility for my future life. He invited me to understand new relationships and a new life for a consistent life testimony and possibilities that he and OKC Compassion offered me, and from that night on, my life began to be transformed.

I worked at OKC Compassion for the next year as a cook, cooking food, and I joined a recovery program. The opportunities that this ministry offered enabled me to learn the joy of serving others. My new found hope enabled me to provide that hope to others. It's now just over two years since I started living in my truck at the church in the parking lot and I have been drug free for over two years. 

It's also through OKC Compassion that I met my friend, Pastor Jim Southwork, who became my mentor and friend. Pastor Jim also helps me in so many ways it would take the rest of this day to tell you about it. One of the things Pastor Jim has done is that he has shown enough faith and hope in me to become my business partner. 

We currently have a growing heat and air conditioning company. About a month ago, Pastor Joe, here, asked me to speak to a group of children and youth at Shawnee, Kansas, and participate in a program at OKC Compassion that is called the Poverty Simulation Program. Having thought about what he wanted me to say, it came to me that the one thing they could never truly simulate in poverty simulation is the lack of hope thatÆs trapped in that life we bring. 

Simulate the hope, I'm sorry. I'd like you to see that OKC Compassion offers that those trapped in the life of addiction or poverty - OKC Compassion offers something greater than food or financial help. It is hope for the hopeless, and someone in the area of N.W. Tenth and Penn asked the question, "Where, then, is my hope and who will see my hope?" The answer can be found at OKC Compassion. Thank you.

(applause)

Dr. Michelson:  The scholar, Robert Putnam, wrote a text several years ago entitled "Bowling Alone" and since then has worked with the Saguaro Seminar founded at Harvard University and talked about the kind of things that happen when communities come together. In fact, they coined a term for this kind of thing when communities and social agencies come together. It's called social capital. 

Social capital has to do with when groups and agencies, individuals and persons work together in ways that develop trust, reciprocity; provide information, cooperation; and work across social networks. According to the Saguaro Seminar, founded through the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, research has begun to show how powerfully social capital, or its absence, affects the well-being of individuals, organizations and nations.
 
Economic studies demonstrate that social capital makes workers more productive, firms more competitive, nations more prosperous. When people work together and agencies work together psychological research has demonstrated that abundant social capital makes individuals less prone to depression and more inclined to help others. 

Epidemiological reports show that social capital, the life of people invested in one another, decreases the rates of suicide, colds, heart attacks, strokes, cancer; improves individual ability to fight or recover from illness. Sociological experiments suggest that when social capital is invested, when people work together and agencies work together, there is a reduction in crime, a reduction in juvenile delinquency, a reduction in teenage pregnancy, a reduction in child abuse, a reduction in welfare dependency, a reduction in drug abuse and an increase in test scores and graduation rates. 

And from our personal experiences, we know, too, that social capital makes navigating life a whole lot easier. Our friends and family members cheer us up when we're down. They bring us chicken soup when we're sick. They offer job leads when we're unemployed. They babysit our kids when we need time away. They join us at the movies when we're bored. They give us loans when we're broke. And they remember our birthdays even when other people forget them. 

Social capital allows us to be better together. What is more, social capital has what economists call "positive externalities." That is, networks of trust and reciprocity that not only benefit those within them but those outside of them. Consequently, when social capital is depleted, people suffer in clear and measurable ways, and there is a ripple effect beyond a scattering of lonely individuals. Shoring up our stock of social capital, therefore, represents one of the most promising approaches for remedying all sorts of social evil. 

One of the things that needs to happen is that social agencies, public governments need to work with faith-based programs. Patty Ross, another one of my friends, is going to get up and share her story about how OKC Compassion helped shore up social capital in her life.

Patty Ross: Hi. My name is Patty Ross, and I just want to say that I'm very honored to be here and I'd like to share my story with you. I was raised in a very loving family full of traditional values, very family-oriented, stable and secure. I was very loved, cared for and nurtured. I faced a tragedy at a young age. 

When I was seven years old my sister, brother-in-law and two-year-old nephew were killed in a head-on car wreck. This was a major blow to the whole structure of my family. I can never begin to comprehend the pain and loss that my parents felt, but they did their very best to move on, raise and take care of the remaining five children in the home. 

I had a somewhat normal childhood. I dreamed of growing up, marrying the man of my dreams and having a family of my own. And I did. Shortly after the birth of my first child, my mother suddenly passed away from a massive heart attack. My understanding of my life and of life in general changed, and I entered into a dark period.
 
The stability and structure that my parents had and were able to give me collapsed immediately on my mother's death. I went into a horrible tailspin. She was my childhood home. I searched hopelessly for security and stability, and was unable to find them. Over the next 27 years, I have (inaudible). I used methamphetamine intravenously pretty much on a daily basis. I married and divorced three times and had three more children. For a majority of the years I functioned as a single mother, scraping to get by, doing what I needed to do, or what I could do to get what I needed to raise my children and take care of myself, while slowly wasting away. I endured, and my children had to endure, the pain of life.

And really there was no one in my life, or even in my neighborhood or community that brought me long-term help or recovery. I existed but did not really live. I was alive but neither I nor my children grew up like they should have. My life needed a change from the systems and the programs that I had used for so long.

The people at OKC Compassion and Penn Avenue Church, and especially Pastor Richard Bond, came into my life. They did not just feed me and my children and help us with some monetary help at times. But he believed in me and the people there believed in me, and believed in the ability for my children to (inaudible). They believed in my ability to
change my life. They loved me and they treated me as family.
 
Pastor Bond led me back into a meaningful relationship with myself, with my family and with hope that I could (inaudible). I knew that God had other plans for me (inaudible). As a result of their care and love and the grace and mercy of God, and persons at OKC Compassion and Penn Avenue Church, I have now been clean from drugs for over five years.
 
And there's more. I found meaning for living by serving others through OKC Compassion. I began volunteering there almost five years ago and my relationships continue to grow and develop. Facing all of the guilt and the shame of my past was very hard, but a local and caring church and compassionate ministry helped me understand new relationships and new social opportunities to transform into non-existence to really living. Thank you.

(applause)

Dr. Michelson: Part of Patty's larger story includes the fact that during those 27 years as a drug user, she benefitted from social public policy. She benefitted from case workers and social workers and things that were part of her life, and she genuinely was the recipient of the good news, the good things that government and public policy can provide. But in her unique situation it demonstrates for us yet again that there needs to be more than just handouts.  There need to be ôhand ups.ö 

And for her it meant not only having people provide for her, but give her greater meaning for her life. It was that social capital. It was the invested lives that came into her life. Certainly there were individual caseworkers. Certainly there are individual people who participated with her, but when that community came together in a local neighborhood and when that community came together in a local neighborhood and partnered with her in her life, now, as part of that, her life has been transformed. One of the things that's so good about public policy and government agencies is the kind of capital that is cash, monetary, physical resources they have.
 
But we also know that government-based entities in fact operate out of, by and large, government-based buildings. And so what that means is that our government-based programs are usually localized in specific places often in downtown areas or here around the capitol building and all of that is very good. But in the idea of social capital one of the things that's been being discovered and is being continued to be researched is how local communities and small agencies of hope within neighborhoods - not in the downtown area, not at the capitol building - but in agencies all over town, provide hope and meaning for places, for people. 

In fact, there is a study done that was produced in May of 2004. The study itself took place in 2002, but the research was published in May 2004. The title of this publication, came out, it's entitled, "Measuring Local Institutions and Organizations: The Role of Community Institutional Capacity in Social Capital." It was produced by the non-partisan Urban Institute. The intent of the Urban Institute is to study and measure how local organizations are linked to neighborhoods of well-being. Researchers in various disciplines study the positive features of social communities and look at how the reduction in adverse outcomes results from neighborhood organizations. 

I'm not going to cite all of the different reference tools that come as part of this publication, "Measuring Local Institutions and Organizations," published by Caterina Roman and Gretchen Moore, but in studies going back to 1978, 1989, 1999, 2001, 1986, 1990, 2002, the indication has proven that strong institutions can increase public safety. They can improve supervision of children. They can reduce physical decay and disorder within communities. 

It can increase participation in community organizations and thus their empowerment. Neighborhood cohesion can be raised so that physical health itself improves. One of the things that resulted in this study is they determined that the actual density or closeness of neighborhood organizations made a significant difference. 

In fact, as part of their research study, they measured organizations that were within neighborhoods at a distance of 300 to 500 meters. So if you put that in perspective, of course, you've got just a few football fields' length away, or just a few city blocks away from where you are.
And as part of this study, they found within local neighborhoods a variety of what they call pro-social agencies, or pro-social places, and they include churches, but they also include community health centers and life services organizations. 

And one of the important things that was discovered and reported in their discussion and conclusions in this report include the fact that they discovered a significant difference between exchange, between the levels of social capital, between the community institutional capacity, a term that they used as part of their study, they found a greater sense of efficacy and participation, reciprocated exchange and block satisfaction when agencies were in the neighborhood. 

In addition they found that pro-social places, including religious institutions, related positively to participation among neighborly interaction, trust and reciprocity. In addition, they said categorically, and I quote here from their discussion and conclusion, "Distance matters. Increased access to organizations is related to high levels of collective efficacy, social control and block satisfaction. Neighborhoods that are isolated from community-based organizations have a reduced ability to foster interaction and pro-social norms.ö 

And one of the things that I thought about as I read through this study and the reports and the discussion and the conclusions that they came up with, is that while public service government-based policy have so much to offer, the fact of the matter is they can't be in every neighborhood. And, yet, it's not exactly true, but it's very much a sort of truth that in just about every neighborhood, not maybe every block, but on just about every neighborhood, there are pro-social institutions called communities of faith, places where people come together for worship. 

Of course, in some neighborhoods there are other agencies that provide help. There are life support services and counseling services, but one of the things that seems to be unique and certainly truthful here in the state of Oklahoma, is there are churches in just about every neighborhood. 

And in some neighborhoods there are developing synagogues and congregations of mosques that are gathering together, where in local communities, that distance of 300 to 500 meters, faith-based agencies can provide assistance. I have another friend who's going to share his story about how he rode a bus up and down the street and found in a local neighborhood pro-social efficacy and help. My friend, Ben Hester. 

Ben Hester: I just want to say that it's a privilege and an honor to be here to share what I'm feeling today. And this is my story. In 1999, I was Riding the Metro bus. I was just riding up and down Tenth Street, east and west. I had been released from prison. I met an old friend of mine. His name was Robert Healy. He and I were from the same home - same town, Clinton, Oklahoma. 

Robert hadn't seen me in years because of my incarceration, but he knew my whole family, so he asked me when was the last time I'd been home. I said, "It's been years." So he told me about this church on Tenth and Penn, about a pastor there named Richard Bond. He told me if I needed to call home or if I needed to see my people, if I needed money or I needed something to eat that this place to go and person to see was Richard Bond, and he was the one I needed to ask for. 

So one day I was passing by the church and I remembered what Robert had told me about the church and about Pastor Bond. Robert said to go up there for help and sometimes to eat. I went there to find the pastor, but he was not in town. I wasn't looking for a church home. I wasn't looking for a long-term relationship. I didn't believe in Christianity. I didn't believe in or have hope in many people or at all. 

I didn't have any idea about faith nor what faith-based ministries was all about. I didn't know anything about church, except the fact when I was a kid my parents and grandparents made me go. I was an adult, now, and I had no interest in belief for church or God. 

So as I was saying, the pastor was out of town. I met a guy there named û his name was Art Lewis, and he said, "I'm a Christian." I replied, "I'm Ben Hester," and then I lied and said, "I'm a Christian." Art went to explain to me that the pastor was in Kansas and he would be back Wednesday. Art asked me, "Are you looking for a home church?" I lied again. I said, "Yes," because I didn't want to be embarrassed by saying I needed financial help, paying my electrical bill. 

Finding help since I had been released from jail was not always easy, and my history in jail did not help me any. So Art Lewis was the Director of OKC Compassion then, and he told me the times of their service and invited me back to church, and I didn't want to be a liar, and I did need some help. So I was there at 7:00 the following Wednesday. It was a warm welcome from the small crowd along with Art Lewis. At the end of the service they greeted me goodbye and Art and his wife took me home and invited me back again. 

I accepted the invitation over and over. I kept going to find an excuse not to go. I was looking for what people call a hypocrite. Well, that night, God revealed to me the only hypocrite there was me. Therefore, I stopped looking for hypocrites. Now, I know the church is a hospital for the sick, for people who want to be healed and made whole. 

Since I've been at OKC Compassion, I've been redeemed. I've been transformed. I no longer focus on myself, my problems, but I try to assist others with theirs, and their life issues and challenges. This is my story. 

(applause)

Dr. Michelson: For Ben and Patty and Patrick there's hope that has come through this neighborhood pro-social agency. Ben, as part of his story, shared that this agency OKC Compassion became for him like a hospital. And the fact of the matter is, we need more agencies like hospitals that bring healing to people, and we have them in neighborhoods all around Oklahoma City and in the state of Oklahoma, but they're not hospitals. They're faith-based agencies that bring a unique form of healing to people. 

Well, in addition to these stories that have been shared, we know that there are other ways by which people need efficacy and help brought into their life. We know that there are hundreds, even thousands of people who go through systems of incarceration, whether that's prison or jail, and for those people it's not just social workers and police officers and judges and the legal system that work with them, but it includes probation officers and people that help them think about life when they get out.

There are several issues that are raised for people when they transition out of prisons or jails. Amy Solomon is the author of ôLife After Lock-Up: Improving Re-Entry from the Jail to Local Jails.ö As part of her story and part of her book that she's written and her research, she talks a lot about how in prisons there have been many agencies that have been set up for people in long-term periods of incarceration, where they can be rehabilitated and taught systems and skills for coming out in life. 

But part of the problem that she identifies with local jails is that people are incarcerated for a much shorter period of time and the ability to work with them and help them because of their shorter incarcerations has been focused on less. She talks about the needs for what happens in jails in particular when she says that jails need to let community agencies, faith volunteers and family inside the gates to begin services and skill building that can continue on the outside. 

She also talks about what I've already cited, the differences between jails and prisons, when she says, "It's more complicated to organize policy reform for jails. Reforming prisons means dealing with 50 state systems, as opposed to 3,365 jails, which independently are operated by sheriffs for local administrators." 

But she still believes there's hope for what communities can do in both jails and prisons for people who are being released from their incarceration. She says this: "Even the most advanced and effective jail system can't address re-entry on its own, because inmates return to the community so quickly. It takes a team approach with employers and people from law enforcement, health and human services, and support networks such as families and the faith community." 

In order to share her story with us about her being brought out of prison and back to new life, let me introduce to you my friend, Patty Hennahaugh.

Patty Hennahaugh: Good afternoon. My name is Patty Hennahaugh and I'm here to share how OKC Compassion has helped me. It's very hard for me to put this into words, so one way I could do it is by my action, and that's why I'm here today to speak with you. So I'd like to share some of my background. I am a college-educated person. I'm a school teacher and a coach and I also owned a business. It was a preschool. 

A few years back, my business was destroyed by a tornado and I decided that... I got into some financial problems and decided that gambling could help me relieve all my problems. Of course, this did not work. It led me into use someone else's credit illegally. I was caught, I admitted it and eventually ended up in prison. 

While I was in prison, I was told about a church in the Tenth and Penn area who helped people. And this information came from another inmate who was getting help and had gotten help in the past, and it stuck with her even though she had backslid a little bit. So, upon getting out of prison, I didn't... my plans did not work out how I thought. 

I had no money, I had no job, I had no home. I didn't know where to go, and I had no one to turn to. I had burned a lot of bridges and I thought that I could handle everything by myself. And now I was really, truly by myself, miserably by myself, and all alone. So after only one night of wandering the streets, I remembered what this person had told me about a church in the Tenth and Penn area. So I came to OKC Compassion. 

It was early one morning. It was before the building had even opened up, but the people were standing outside, and someone came up to me and they asked me if they could help me. So I told them a little bit about my story and they said they were so very sure without any kind of a doubt that I could receive help here. 

So I stuck around and I talked to the leaders of the church and they have a women's recovery program. So I talked to them and they took me in. They gave me something more than just a room in a house. They gave me something I did not expect. They gave me trust and hope, and I've received so much positive encouragement while being there. 

Knowing that I had worked with children, they gave me the privilege to work in their summer kids program with neighborhood children, just this year in 2009. Because of my criminal convictions, I was not sure I could be trusted to work with children ever again. 

Of course my convictions are not against children. They were financial crimes, but I still wondered if anybody would ever trust me again, and it was like a just a great, new opportunity for my life. I also got the opportunity to see how they helped the people. They served daily meals. They provide clothing to individuals. 

But the most important thing is they provide a safe place to come and fellowship regardless of any kind of circumstances and without of any kind of judgment. At this place I found a place to rest and revitalize. They gave me more than just a room and a roof over my head, food and clothing.

They just gave me really a lot of trust and hope. I realize now that people - they do care, and it is okay to ask for help and receive help. Another opportunity I have had is to become a leader in the recovery house. And so, positive things have been happening in my life while living there. I was ready, now, to go and gain employment and I found a job through a company called Guaranty Laundry. 

While there, I've been driving a truck which is training for dock work. Things just keep looking up in my life. I believe because of the hand up that I received from OKC Compassion that my life has gotten better, but more important, I have received that grace and care and belief in larger than life plans that God has for me.  Thank you for letting me share.

(applause)

Dr. Michelson: For each of my friends, Patrick, Patty, Ben and Patty, these opportunities have been afforded to them through faith-based initiatives. One of the things that's true, and I've said already, is that public policy and public government agencies can provide resources to people, but public government agents can't bring convicts, can't bring drug users in to become volunteers and learn the act of serving other people. Faith-based initiatives give people the kind of hope they need to know that they can serve others. 

According to the text titled "Better Together," originally published in the year 2000, republished in 2002 and 2003, they say this: "Houses of worship build and sustain more social capital and social capital in more varied forms than any other type of institution in America. Religious faith of whatever stripe or color provides a moral foundation for civic regeneration. Because faith has such power to transform lives, faith-based programs can enjoy success even where secular programs may fail." 

"To religious institutions," these authors say, "we urge rededication to the project of reaching across congregations, denominations and religions to promote a larger sense of community, rebuilding our stock and bridging our social capital. If houses of worship explicitly emphasize social capital as much as they do spirituality they will further both their mission of spirituality and social life. 

To secular leaders, we urge you to suspend suspicion of faith-based organizations and to think creatively about ways to work with religious leaders and other people of faith in projects of civic renewal. We know from our own heated discussions that grappling with the role of religion in public life is not easy. But these discussions need to take place and each of us, whether religious or not, needs to re-examine how faith organizations do and can create a more civil, social capital-rich community for those in our culture and in our life. 

Secular leaders, whether from government, the academy, organized philanthropy or the non-profit world, must challenge their assumption that religious organizations are primarily preoccupied with other-worldly concerns and recognize how deeply these organizations are embedded in the civic life of congregations, congregants, communities and neighborhoods.
This important civic role should be nurtured and broadened." 

As I started this presentation today, with the help of my dear friends, I said that public agency, public governments, public processes are different than faith-based initiatives. We need to understand and recognize those differences, but we need to continue to act on our commonalities of enabling the good for people who need life and hope. 

One of the other things that I want to share with you as I prepare to wrap up, in the text "Better Together" that I just cited, they share several different ways by which agencies and individuals can begin to participate in making the good available for more people and I loved this one of several that was shared. "Put more than money in the collection plate.ö 

In Boston some area synagogues are just substituting services for dues. Members can pay off their financial obligation with hours of volunteer service. One Saguaro participant offered an intriguing and expanded parallel. ôCongregations,ö he said, ôshould encourage their members to put social capital promises for the congregation and for the broader community into the collection plate, in addition to or perhaps even instead of donations. For example, one member might pledge to read to a neighboring blind person. Another might commit to watching a parishioner's children when she went out to apply for a job." 

The thing I like about this simple suggestion is it recognizes that any and all of us can do something small to make a difference in the lives of others. Let me leave us with this final word and I'll turn it over to Robin Jones to wrap up for us. The following words were written on the tomb of an Anglican bishop in the crypts of the Westminster Abbey: 

"When I was young and free and my imagination had no limits, I dreamed of changing the world. As I grew older and wiser, I discovered the world would not change. So I shortened my sights somewhat and decided to change only my country. But it, too, seemed immoveable. 

As I grew into my twilight years, in one last desperate attempt I settled for changing only my family, those closest to me. But, alas, they would have none of it. 

And, now, as I lie on my death bed I suddenly realize, if I had only changed myself first, then, by example, I would have changed my family. From their inspiration and encouragement I would then have been able to better my country. And who knows? I may have even changed the world." 

What a privilege for me to have this opportunity to share not just my story and the story of OKC Compassion, but the story of OKC Compassion as a point of light, if you will, as one perspective of a congregation that's in a local neighborhood community just like some of you who are members of some congregation or synagogue or mosque in your local community. 

What a privilege to hear stories of Patty and Patrick and Ben and Patty, who decided to change only their own lives, and now shape even the way we see the future. The government and faith-based agencies will be better together if we recognize and understand our differences but act on our commonalities. Thank you.

(applause)