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| Tools for Transformation |
 | | in Appalachia
Appalachian pastors and other church leaders pause to pray for each other during a pastors’ conference hosted by World Vision. Training and encouragement are essential to sustaining strong Christian leaders in Appalachia. |
Equipping Communnities to Lead with Heart |
Randy Montgomery spends his weekends pastoring a small church in Brownton, West Virginia. During the week he supports his family by delivering parcels––a job that consumes as many as 12 hours each weekday. In between his two vocations, little time is left for Randy to hone his theological and pastoral skills. Yet the need for solid Christian leadership and counseling is great in this impoverished former coal town nestled in the rolling Appalachian Mountains.
Randy’s story is repeated many times throughout West Virginia’s undulating terrain. Local pastors, often serving in isolated and struggling communities, are forced to have two vocations: working a weekday job to earn an income and pastoring on the weekends. Hundreds have neither the time nor the finances to develop their skills as pastors. Those who are able to attend short conferences often cannot afford the expensive manuals, workbooks, cassette tapes, and videos that would further enhance their skills.
World Vision: Addressing the Need
A solution was forged for Randy and other pastors in 2001, when World Vision opened a ministry resource center. Housed in a local community center, the resource center serves as a lending library and training site for Appalachian pastors and church leaders to develop their pastoral skills. The center also is creating a network for congregations across Appalachia, informing often isolated pastors of the its various resources. Materials can be borrowed on site or mailed. A mobile lending library also is being developed.
Today, Randy Montgomery is sharpening his pastoral skills by borrowing cassette tapes from the lending library and listening to them while on the road between parcel deliveries. He also will have opportunities to attend pastors’ conferences offered at the center, and to share resources through the growing network of Appalachian pastors.
Tools for Transformation
The ministry resource center is just one component of World Vision’s Tools for Transformation, an initiative designed to equip men and women to serve as leaders in ongoing community transformation efforts. Training and encouragement are essential to sustain strong Christian leaders as they address the often desperate needs throughout West Virginia. To accomplish this vital training, World Vision offers:
- Pastor seminars on issues such as discipleship and family counseling
- An annual Christian development conference, which last spring attracted approximately 200 pastors and community leaders
- A lending library featuring ministry resources
- Forums for pastors and community leaders from across West Virginia to meet, network, and share resources
World Vision also is overseeing the development of community centers in four rural towns. These centers, which serve as meeting places for adults and youth alike, often are the only places a community has to come together, share, and celebrate.
Tools for Transformation also includes Appalachia Vision Trips, which are short-term summer mission trips to West Virginia for church youth groups to inspire leadership, service, worship, and Christ-centered community building.
Bringing Hope to Appalachia
The Appalachian region––a 200,000 square-mile area containing 399 counties in 13 states––is one of the most impoverished regions in the United States. Of the 55 counties in West Virginia, Barbour County, the site of World Vision’s office in Appalachia, is among the five poorest counties in a state that always ranks in the bottom tier of the country’s economic scale.
World Vision’s ministry reaches into 26 of the state’s 55 counties, with community development in five north-central areas. Most of these areas struggle because of the closure of coal mines that once provided steady employment. When the mines began closing in the 1960s, the companies that owned the mines––and the towns––abandoned the company stores that previously served the communities.
Town residents, many whose families had lived there for generations, were left with few jobs and limited resources. Many struggle to even own a own a car, so moving is difficult. And the pervasive value placed on family discourages others from leaving to find work. Many lack an education because they assumed they’d spend their lives working in the mines, and now find they aren’t qualified for other jobs.
To empower the people of Appalachia, World Vision partners with other nonprofit organizations working in local communities. Community development and hope are being built through a network of programs, including Tools for Transformation.
The Rev. Johnny Whitehair, a local pastor who oversees World Vision’s ministry resource center, said Tools for Transformation is providing powerful resources to area pastors––and making a difference not only among the pastors, but among the communities as well. “These pastors often are busy working, raising a family, marrying, burying, visiting the sick––but they haven’t received any marriage counseling training, for instance,” the Rev. Whitehair explained. “That’s critical when people need help because without the counseling training the pastors may not be able to provide families the support and solutions they need. If we can get a pastor and his church going in the right direction, then they’ll be ready to reach out, and do it effectively.”
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