Tuesday, 7.18.23
Fresh Starts <Urban Ministry> Exchange
Fresh Starts Exchanges are in-person collaborative spaces where people share, explore, and generate contextual ministry solutions together. Each Exchange will feature guest practitioners in-person from the specific contexts.
Participants may choose either a morning session from 9am - noon or an afternoon session from 1-4pm to dialogue in community with each other.
To create more time and opportunity to Exchange, each session is limited to 20 people. Both clergy and laity are invited. A free opt-in lunch will be offered between 12-1 thanks to the Christian Family Credit Union.
Tickets are $40/person. Financial assistance is available, if needed. Please contact tmcclain [at] wocumc.org (Terri McClain).
Special Guest for the Urban Ministry context is
- Rev. Faith Fowler, Cass Community UMC in Detroit, MI
Rev. Faith Fowler is the senior pastor of Cass Community United Methodist Church and the executive director of Cass Community Social Services, a large nonprofit in Detroit that serves more than 700,000 meals a year and houses about 300 homeless people per night alongside a day program, medical clinics, and a job center. She has been the director of Cass Community Social Services since 1994.
Fowler helped create the Tiny Homes Detroit project, Cass Community Publishing House, and Cass Green Industries, which produces the sustainable products sold by Cass Community Social Services.
Fowler graduated from Albion College and has received a Master of Divinity from Boston University School of Theology and a Master of Public Administration from the University of Michigan-Dearborn.
Fowler felt the call to pastorship in junior high, but was told by her church's pastor that she was "wrong". Nonetheless, she studied religion and English at Albion College. To save enough money for a Master of Divinity degree from Boston University, she worked a full-time job at a children's care and rehabilitation facility, and a part-time job at a church youth program.
Fowler has also served as an adjunct professor at University of Michigan-Dearborn, a board member for the Cass Corridor Neighborhood Development Corporation, an advisory board member of the Detroit Area Agency on Aging, and chaired the Detroit Brownfield Redevelopment Authority Advisory Committee. She is the author of two books.