Unite! Atlanta

Last month I had the privilege of helping facilitate a gathering of churches in Atlanta that are a part of Unite! Atlanta (http://www.uniteus.org/pages/). Unite! is a network of churches led by pastors and church leaders with the primary goal of being used of God to bring about transformation throughout the city of Atlanta and the hope of Christ through their unified acts of kindness, service, compassion and love.

Chip Sweney, the Metro Outreach Director at Perimeter Presbyterian Church in Duluth, Georga, pulled this group together for four gatherings over a two year period to grapple with the hard issues of city transformation. The theme of this particular gathering was racial reconciliation. The host church for the gathering was Providence Missionary Baptist Church. Dr. Gerald Durley is the Senior Pastor of Providence. As a young man he marched with Martin Luther King.

Dr. Durley is a life-long friend of Andrew Young (pictured above), former U.S. Congressman, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, and former Governor of Atlanta. The first day of this two-day gathering was January 15th, the 80th birthday of Martin Luther King. As we were about to begin the meetings I noticed a distinguished looking man dressed in a blue suit and wearing a bow tie. To everybody's surprise, Andrew Young, who lives three blocks from the church, dropped in for a visit. 

We had the privilege of hearing from him for about 45 minutes. After he spoke we were able to hear from Dr. Durley, and Dr. J. Allen Milner, who was also a contemporary of MLK's, and for the past several years has impacted the homeless in Atlanta through Odyssey III.

Those 25-30 of us in attendance were pinching ourselves to believe where we were and who we were with on Martin Luther's 80th birthday, less than one week from the Inauguration of the first ever African American President of the United States.

That was an incredible experience. During one of the sessions at the Gathering, Chip shared "Vision 2020", which lays out some of the specific goals of Unite!, including some of the metrics. I was amazed at the enormity of their vision and by the fact that they are tackling some major issues of social justice. Here are the metrics that they have come up with:

Family

• Current Situation: Divorce Rate is 43%
• 2020 Goal: Reduce Divorce Rate by 30%/Decrease out of wedlock birth rate by 50%

Justice

• Current Situation: Approx. 250 girls per month prostituted (Actual numbers are probably much higher)
• 2020 Goal: All children are safe, None are sold into sex slavery

Education

• Current Situation: 70% graduation rate in Public Schools, only 69% of 3rd Graders are at grade level
• Goal: 90% graduation rate from high schools, 95% or 3rd graders at grade level

Poverty

• Current Situation: 40% of students receive free and reduced rate lunches
• Goal: 20% of students receive free and reduced rate lunches

(Pictured above are Dr. Gerald Durley and Chip Sweney)

What is most impressive about these goals is they aren't just trying to alleviate individual suffering among hurting people in their city, but they are actually attempting to overhaul broken systems that create large scale suffering in their city.

"He has told you O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you...but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God." Micah 6:8

Comments

[matt]

Make sure to connect with Louie Giglio and the just-launched Passion City Church in Atlanta. They could be a huge partner.

Blessings.