wfn.org | Eugenia Gamble Urges Churches to "Lay Down Our Lives for Christ"

[PCUSA NEWS <pcusa.news@ecunet.org>]

GA99048 
25-June-1999 
 
                 Eugenia Gamble Urges Churches to 
                 "Lay Down Our Lives for Christ" 
      
FORT WORTH - "It is not our job to try to survive as an institution or even 
as a community of faith; it is our job to lay down our lives for Christ," 
the Rev. Eugenia Gamble told about 100 Presbyterian Health, Education and 
Welfare Association (PHEWA) members and supporters here tonight.  "We are 
not called to survive but to figure out what the meaning of our community's 
life is."   
     Gamble,  pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Birmingham, Ala., spoke 
of her congregation's turn around from a survival mentality to becoming 
involved in the community.  "The turn around came when people began to see 
there might be something meaningful left for them to do  And that came when 
they discovered the need to live in community with the people who were 
living on our plot of ground," literally on the church steps, in some 
cases. 
     First Presbyterian, Birmingham, Ala., is "right in the center of the 
poorest zip code in the nation," Gamble noted.  Seventy-two percent of 
elderly women in Alabama live in poverty, she reported, and 18% of teenage 
girls attempt suicide, often because of poverty.  On any given night in 
Birmingham, "2600 homeless people are counted, and another 30,000 are just 
one bill away from being on the streets," she said. 
     Requests for help from her congregation have doubled in the last year. 
One way the church has responded, she reported,  is by undertaking a $2.3 
million capital campaign.  The goal is to buy a hotel and turn it into a 
program center for women.  So far they have raised $1.9 million of the 
goal. Architects' plans were unveiled this week, she said, and First Light, 
Inc., is scheduled to open on March 1, 2000. 
     "The body of Christ is not powerless," Gamble said.  "God has the 
resources to do what God wants done in this world, and we are those 
resources."  Christians too often are guilty of "wringing their hands and 
sitting on them at the same time.  It reminds me of the story of the little 
girl who was helping her father water the lawn.  She was holding the hose 
and spraying the yard, and all went well for a while.  Suddenly the father 
heard a wail from the child.  The stream of water from the hose had slowed 
to a trickle.  'It's broken!' she cried.  'It doesn't work any more!'  Her 
father looked, and said, 'You are standing on the hose.  Pick your foot up 
off the hose.'  I'm saying to you, to us all, 'Pick your foot up off the 
hose'." 
     Gamble is a graduate of the University of Alabama, received her Master 
of Divinity from the University of the South, and is doing post-graduate 
work at Louisville Seminary.  Her book "Glimpses of Home" was named "Best 
Bible Study of 1995" by the Associated Church Press.  She is married to 
Roger Thomas. 
 
Peggy Rounseville  

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  This note sent by Office of News Services, 
  Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
  to the World Faith News list <wfn-news@wfn.org>.
  For additional information about this news story,
  call 502-569-5493 or send e-mail to PCUSA.News@pcusa.org

  On the web:  http://www.pcusa.org/pcnews/

  If you have a question about this mailing list, 
  send queries to wfn@wfn.org