collaboration – Page 9

Sep 23 2017

A Life-Changing Summer with UniteBoston

UniteBoston’s summer intern, Chloe Gaydos, reflects on her time working with UniteBoston and and how this experience impacted her future ministry. She is a Business and Finance Major at Gordon College and is now in her senior year. This summer, her projects included web maintenance, UB’s worship night planning/recruiting and researching the UB Reps program. She seeks to continue worship drumming in Boston and work towards connecting Christians in Boston across denominations.

Chloe with new friends from Lion of Judah Church this summer.

Early in the first semester of my senior year, I told my mentor that ministry had no place in my career. I was set in my direction and aggressively searched for a summer internship while taking a full course load of economic courses. Two months later, I found myself sitting in a Thai restaurant waiting to meet my new boss and explore options for projects and opportunities within UniteBoston. She gave me an introduction to the non-profit’s origins and mission, and then we defined goals. I was able to quickly see that I had been placed in an internship with full freedom of creativity, which was the greatest opportunity that I could possibly ask for. I was given my choice of projects, so that my voice that would be heard, and then wisdom to guide me along the way. In my opinion, this is the best way to motivate volunteers, workers, and especially students.

I remember asking the director of UniteBoston, Kelly Steinhaus, if she would let me plan a small worship night in Boston. Looking back, I realize now that I had been a bit homesick for my home institution, Gordon College, and their charismatic worship nights where I would drum on a regular basis. I was looking for something familiar because I had just moved to Boston, and I was willing to do anything to play worship music again. Kelly instantly responded with bright ideas and her full support for the worship night.

I originally envisioned one guitarist, a worship leader, and I playing under Boston’s evening lights in front of maybe 20 people, knowing that Boston is known to be a dry area for religion. The worship night far exceeded my expectations, involving sound, logistics, and prayer teams, lights, a full live band, and 400 people worshipping in the same location as the “free speech rally” the week beforehand. I might need a few more blog posts to sufficiently explain the revelations, relationships, struggles, and miracles that happened in the process of planning, recruiting, and executing the worship night. When I had initially contemplated a summer internship, I honestly could not have guessed in a million years that this would’ve been my summer.

Because of my involvement with UB, my summer was filled with 3 am Latino prayer vigils, Saturday morning street ministry, genuine coffee talks, worship team practices, a few radio interviews, UB online maintenance, networking calls, worship night logistics management, and, of course, controversy over division. I could flash back to my economics lectures and easily explain why specialization and separation are both the most cost-effective and sustainable processes of productivity. But now I have experienced the power of Christian unity. I simply fell in love with the luxury of dialogue covering vast subjects and concerns far beyond broad statements or emotions. My internship made me more interested in the roots, the ‘why’ of situations. I became highly motivated to research deeper into the history of Christianity and what the Church, the body of Christ, is called to be.

As I reflect on the summer, I have a new value for connections, which helps me to see my future ministry, travels in Europe, and studies in a new light. I can see that relationships I tend to form too often have task-oriented objectives. Working behind the scenes of UniteBoston, I have seen God using this non-profit to heal the past wounds of Christians. I have seen relationships form based only on a common love of Jesus. I see my own wounds mending most effectively by collaboration with other Christians. That’s why I now break my ministry into two timelines: before UniteBoston, and afterwards.

The awesome people on the UB worship team that Chloe convened and coordinated this summer. Meet the team here!

Nov 22 2015

UB Pics: “Better Together” Workshop and UB Bonfire!

On November 12, UniteBoston hosted Paul Fleischmann from the Better Together Ministry.

Paul shared 12 strategic principles of collaboration to help Christians grow in learning how to work together more effectively in order to accomplish what God has put each of us here to do.

20151112_203047 — Vito Nicastro and Paul Flieschmann together holding the Boston Globe article on Christian Unity that came out that day.

Stories and S’Mores on Singing Beach!

UniteBoston hosted a bonfire on Singing Beach on Saturday November 21st.

The night was beautiful; with a moonlit sky and the ocean waves crashing behind us, we shared stories around a campfire about how God was working in our lives.

New friends, great laughs, fun songs.

Jun 25 2014

Boston’s South End and UniteBoston

For the past five months, the UniteBoston Reps have been engaging in various activities to listen and learn from their communities. These next four weeks, each rep will be writing a brief blog to share their findings with the Greater Boston Christian community.

We dream of having every community in Boston connected with a UB Rep! UB Rep Cohorts begin in October and extend to May. If you’re interested in being a UB Rep in your community, email Kelly Steinhaus, kelly@uniteboston.com
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Photo Credit: Flickr.com

By Ralph Kee, UniteBoston Rep: South End

I’ve been encouraged to see how God is working throughout the South End. Recently, pastors or designated representatives of churches that meet in or within a couple of blocks of the South End have been holding 2-hour meetings together every six weeks for the last year, for the purpose of South End focussed Great Commission collaboration. Fifteen churches have attended at least one meeting, with an average of six or so churches and twelve or so people at each meeting. The South End itself is about one square mile with some 35,000 residents, and there are 35 churches of all kinds are listed in the South End, so as you can see, the need is great.

At each of the meetings, individuals representative of various Boston endeavors have presented their work, their needs, as well as their offers to help South End churches, collectively or individually. At recent meetings, there has been discussions on helping South End public schools, helping reduce South End street violence, helping families affected by violence, connecting with Tenants Development Corporation, and helping refugees adjust to Boston. In addition to this, a collaborative outdoor Easter Sunrise Service was held in a South End park, with components of the service led by five of the churches and about forty people in attendance.

There are many realities facing the South End of Boston at this time, such as the ongoing loss of church buildings to high-end condos, the increasing number of millionaires, and the reality that whole new mini-neighborhoods are being constructed in or near the South End. Christians need to address these current realities, and collectively come up with an answer to the question: how do the churches put their expertise to work collaboratively for further South End Kingdom-building? And can we collaboratively be out in the coffee shops and in the parks this summer doing some friendship building and evangelism? These are things for the South End churches themselves to decide. And then, as led, do.

The group is now at a critical point. After a year of meetings, concrete results need to be seen if interest is to continue. Unless this kind of endeavor produces two things at the same time: added strength and growth to individual participating churches and at the same time added additional strength and growth and evangelistic success to the whole Body of Christ in the South End, interest and participation in this endeavor will lapse. We hope this effort to collaborate will be successful.

We praise God for UniteBoston, for its commitment to neighborhood focussed collaborative vision-building and practice. My UniteBoston prayer walk around the INK Block construction was a memorable prayer walk. Getting the UniteBoston Reps that focus on various Boston neighborhoods regularly around the same table is critical. Constantly learning from each other and encouraging each other is basic to success That’s what they did in the Book of Acts and what we need to do in Boston, and UniteBoston is helping enable this to happen.

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