Home / Mission and Outreach

Habitat and Westminster

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Westminster church currently has two service opportunities with Habitat for Humanity. Our crew of builders meets on the second Saturday of the month to work on homes in various stages of construction. Habitat’s model of late is to build clusters of duplexes and even six-plexes in Charlottesville, to help with land acquisition costs and promote in-fill. Currently the building activity is located at Harmony Ridge, off 5th Street South, where ten families will move in later this fall.

The builders partner with other Presbyterian congregations in the area to form a group of typically 15 workers. Thanks to Westminster’s builders within the past year: Aurora Nichols, John Kleinschmidt, Ron Wiley, Noah Oakland, Winston Harmon, Colin Lee, Sage Bradburn, and Steve Wilson. Contact Steve if interested in participating.

At the same time, Westminster is hosting Community Conversations, a monthly community-building effort with the families that will occupy the homes of Harmony Ridge. Billie Best coordinates a meal for the 60 some Habitat families, Habitat staff, and volunteers who gather. After dinner, the adults work with staff members to create a shared set of values for the new neighborhood. Lucy Burnette and Carolyn Brown lead activities designed to help children become friends before they become neighbors. And, Kathy Stacy heads up child care for the youngest.  Over 25 Westminster folks join these four to form a caring loving team.  Thank you to all!

Celebrating the Emancipation of Enslaved People

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On a recent rainy afternoon, many gathered in the Rotunda to celebrate the emancipation of 14,000 enslaved people of a total population of 27,000 in Charlottesville and Albemarle County after the Civil War Rio Hill skirmish and surrender. We were celebrating Liberation and Freedom Day on March 3rd, 2019 with those who are descendants from the enslaved laborers who build the university, ministers, choir group, University architect, Board of Visitors member, faculty, staff and alumni and individuals from the community.

The choir was heartwarming with their message that no one can hold you down and you can make a difference, contribute and each have a valuable life. And James Murray, Vice Rector, told us that the child had been born at the hospital that day and he referred to the child as Hope. He laid out by stages of life what we as a community and the university together could do to give this child and every child here opportunities for a full and rich life. What an empowering proposal for us to work together to make happen in our lives and for the futures of our children.

We also learned of some of the realities of being a in slave labor. That the Rotunda itself took more than 1 million bricks to dig, form, bake, move, and build. And we learned that some of those bricks were made by children because their handprints are still in the bricks. We now have a commemorative vial of soil perfect for making bricks from the construction site marked with the date of the ceremony and the outline of the Memorial.

On site of the memorial one can see a sample slab. Only about 1/4 or so of the enslaved laborers is known their occupation or their name and the rest are slashes, like slashes from a whip as a line for each person. It is stunning.

Westminster Presbyterian Church last year made a gift of $2,000 toward the construction of the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers.  This represents our church’s continued commitment both to the causes of justice within our community and to our ministry to the University of Virginia. This site is important to the community’s and to the University’s ongoing reflection on its past, actions and building stronger relationships going forward.

I personally have been watching the progress on the Memorial as I walk to work each day and looking forward to its completion. The university is also planning a dedication ceremony for the completed project in Spring 2020. I hope you will join in that celebration.

Respectfully submitted,
Kobby Hoffman
Benevolence and Mission Endowment Committee

Hunger Offering

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Every other month, Westminster and the Presbytery of the James invite you to give five cents for each meal you enjoy to relieve hunger locally and globally. A small amount from each of us creates big change. In 2018 congregations in this Presbytery contributed $68,153 to the Hunger Ministry. On Sunday, March 31, an offering will be received during worship with the proceeds going to our support food relief for our neighbors locally and those across the world.

The majority of funds distributed provide emergency food relief to people in need. These include emergency food centers; school backpack programs, and county food pantries. Other funds support efforts to eliminate the causes of hunger, such as agricultural training so that recipients can become self-sufficient.

A small portion of donations support advocacy groups. Bread for the World, a faith-based network, campaigns nationally for policy change. Locally, Virginia Hunger Solutions works to improve food security through state programs and improved policy.

These are some of the programs you support through the Hunger Offering:

  • Advocacy efforts to improve access to free breakfast and lunch programs for Virginia schools
  • Community grain banks for food security in Cameroon
  • Seeds for farmers in Haiti following hurricanes
  • Snacks to support education for child laborers in Guatemala

Westminster Featured as Solar Faith Community

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Westminster has gotten some Commonwealth-wide recognition! Virginia Interfaith Power & Light (VAIPL) is our state affiliate of Interfaith Power & Light, which brings together faith communities to mobilize a religious response to climate change through energy conservation, energy efficiency, and renewable energy. Recently, their news featured solar faith communities and congregations across the state, and Westminster was one of those featured.  Click here and scroll down.

How Do We Test For The Gender of the Heart?

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             “The only dependable test for gender is the truth of a person’s life, the lives we live each day.  Surely the best judge of a person’s gender is not a degrading, questionable, examination. The best judge of a person’s gender is what lies within his or her heart. How do we test for the gender of the heart. . . ?”                                                                  Quote by Jennifer Finney Boylan in Becoming Nicole                                                                         

               This morning, before heading off to Westminster Pres., I finished reading Becoming Nicole by Amy Ellis Nutt. A few months ago, this book was recommended to me as an educational resource to understand the growing interest and issues related to transgender people.  Becoming Nicole provides a clinical, sociological and psychological perspective on what it means to be a transgender man or woman growing up in America. And yet, Nutt’s book is so much more than these words imply.

In essence, this is a book about family. It’s about the people who are touched and transformed by a son or daughter’s personal struggle to come to terms with his/her/their identity.

It’s a book about a father who, in the beginning, resisted and reacted poorly to his son’s realization that he could no longer continue to live in the body from his birth. It’s a story about how, despite his own personal struggles, this same father never stopped loving his child.  Indeed, Nicole’s father now travels across the country speaking out on Nicole’s behalf. He has become his daughter’s strongest advocate and admirer. He is, and always will be, Nicole’s dad.

It’s about a mother who fought for her child’s right to be herself in the public schools.  Over the years, while others thought she was somehow mistaken or used poor parenting judgment, Nicole’s mother was convinced that, from an early age, Nicole was unique and deserving of dignity and respect.  To me, her commitment to her daughter demonstrates, once again, that a mother’s unconditional love is stronger than another person’s lack of understanding.

It’s also a story about Nicole’s twin brother, Jonas. It’s about a brother’s steadfast love and support through good times and bad. “I never had a brother,” Jonas once said to Nicole, “You were always a sister to me.”

This book is as informative as it is simply beautiful. In some chapters, the reader will find him/her/themself immersed in pronouns, medical realities, and transgender politics. But in other chapters, a tear will come to the reader’s eye.

As Nicole once said, “Stories move the walls that need to be moved.” I wholeheartedly agree. If this issue has become a “wall” in your family or you want to know more about families facing this particular situation, put Becoming Nicole on your summer reading list.  My prayer for all of us is that such earthy and personal stories will “move the walls that need to be moved” whether they exist in a cultural context or in our hearts.

Blessings, Ken

FYI, Westminster Presbyterian Church will be hosting a pastoral care conference  for pastors, chaplains, and spiritual caregivers, October 21-23. The conference will focus on how churches and pastors care for transgender persons and their families.

https://innovation.sfts.edu/transgender-care/

“So faith, hope, and love abide, these three;
but the greatest of these is love.”
−1 Corinthians 13:13

Our Mission

Sustained by grace, we are called to serve Christ, share God’s love, and work for justice in a complex world.

Our Values

With faith, hope, and love as bedrock Christian values, we also cherish the following:
  • Thinking and Learning
  • Inclusiveness
  • Fellowship
  • Stewardship
  • Courage

 

Westminster follows the Presbyterian Book of Confession and is a confessional church. You can view/read the Book of Confession at the PC(USA) website by clicking on the following link: http://www.pcusa.org/book-confessions.

Contact

Westminster Presbyterian Church
400 Rugby Road
Charlottesville, Virginia 22903-2474
(434) 293-3133 | Email

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