Church volunteers build a house in Mexico in 2006, in front from left: the Rev. Mark Pederson, Jeff Council of Newberg and SheaLunn Slover of McMinnville. Submitted photo

Working together, we can transform churches, communities

Commentary
By Mark Pederson and Steve Ross

America has spent the past 50 years exploring individualism. Our popular attention seems fixated on Red vs. Blue, OSU vs. U of O and survivor vs. survivor.

However, cooperation also is one of the hallmarks of the American experience and a primary reason Americans have been able to accomplish so much in such a short period of time.

Some may fear cooperation. From Main Street news to national TV broadcasts, we constantly are bombarded with the message that strangers are dangerous. You may be surprised to know that violent crime in the United States has declined significantly in the past 30 years, but in that same time the reporting of crime has gone up 500 percent.

We’re being bombarded with fear: fear of those who are different or fear of those who disagree with us. In the words of Jesus, “Perfect love casts out all fear.” So does working together toward a common goal.

In our case, we were led to cooperation by our high school youth. The churches of McMinnville have been cooperating for almost 15 years in what is called YAHOO (Yamhill Alliance, Helping Others Out). This group of youth and adults from several churches (and from the community) spend their spring break each year traveling to Mexico to build houses for those in need. Repeatedly on the long trip home, someone will ask, “Why can’t we cooperate like this when we get home?”

Before our cooperation began, Mark Pederson’s church, Trinity Lutheran, was meeting in McMinnville Grand Ballroom. One day, Steve Ross, pastor of McMinn-ville United Methodist Church, stopped by and asked, “Are there ways we could work together?” We began to look at the idea and appointed a task force to find out.

Task forces are where we send ideas to die quiet deaths. But this group was weird. We started with Mark outlining everything that we would never do: “We will never worship together, and we won’t share facilities.” In about six months, we were doing both.

The idea of working together isn’t limited to the church. It can transform communities as well.

Here are some of the groups with whom we are proud to cooperate in transforming this community:

- McMinnville Downtown Association — small businesses cooperating to keep McMinnville’s downtown vital. Shop locally this Christmas season!

- McMinnville Area Habitat for Humanity — where community-wide support has grown from a small group building one house a year to a large organization building four houses a year.

- Guatemala Habitat Project — a cooperative effort among Linfield College, McMinnville Habitat for Humanity, McMinnville Cooperative Ministries and others in our community to build affordable housing in Guatemala.

- CCBB (Community Compassion Brown Baggers) — nearly 60 people engaged in church, government and community organizations serving those in need, who share resources and ideas to improve the effectiveness of their work.

- The 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness in Yamhill County — a broad-based consortium of government and nonprofit organizations working to end homelessness in Yamhill County.

- Twelve-step groups — individuals and families cooperating with one another in trying to overcome addictions. We have about 25 groups meeting in our buildings each week.

- Our cooperative relationship with Sue Buel elementary school to provide excellent education opportunities for McMinnville’s most vulnerable grade school children.

- Lutheran Community Services — offering counseling and anger management classes in our facilities and in the community.

Five years ago, we set out to discover the limits of how we can cooperate with others to bless this community and world. So far, we haven’t found any limits. Recently, we adopted a welcoming statement that expresses our commitment to cooperate with others.

“We are a welcoming Christian community, united in our desire to work with all people to restore all of creation to God’s loving embrace.

We want you to join us

Whether you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, heterosexual or questioning …

Whether you are Methodist or Lutheran (or neither) …

Whether you are Latino, Asian, black, white, Native American or multiracial …

Whether you drive, walk, ride a bike or are driven here, or if we are called to go to you …

Whether you are single, married, divorced, separated, widowed or part- nered …

Whether you are female, male or transgender …

Whether you are 3, 33, 63 or 103 years old …

Whether you own your home, rent, live with your parents or have no home …

Whatever your strengths or weaknesses, gifts or challenges, they will be honored.”>

This spirit of cooperation not only works for our congregations, it can work wonders in our communities as people from all walks of life and beliefs join together to make this a better place to live.

Guest writer Mark Pederson is pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church, part of McMinnville Cooperative Ministries. He serves on the board of McMinnville Habitat for Humanity and is part owner of Wednesday Wines. He is married to Robin Pederson, who directs choirs at McMinnville High School.

Guest writer Steve Ross is pastor of United Methodist Church, also part of McMinnville Cooperative Ministries. He served as president of McMinnville Downtown Association and enjoys woodworking and traditional boat building. He is married to Joanne Ross, who teaches fifth grade in Newberg.