What is the best way to transform a city? There are many valid approaches to answering this question, but research has shown that one of the greatest investments we can make is in our children. In 2006 Mission Houston (predecessor to Faithwalking) started the Whole and Healthy Children Initiative, encouraging Houstonians to concern themselves with the welfare of our city’s youngest citizens, especially those in under-resourced and under-performing schools. Pastor Jeff McGee and Calvary Community Church, together with Copperfield Church, have been answering that call since 2009 and the impact has been far-reaching.
Calvary Community Church, located in northwest Houston, first decided to get involved in a local elementary school as a way to be intentional about community transformation. A couple of years later, leaders at nearby Copperfield Church were led to do the same. During 2008, Pastor Larry Womack of Copperfield approached Calvary to prayerfully consider partnering together at Hairgrove Elementary in the Cy-Fair ISD. Calvary’s leaders said yes, with Jeff serving as one of the spearheads.
The new committee came up with a vision: to demonstrate the love of Jesus to students, staff, and families of Hairgrove Elementary through service, support, encouragement, and prayer in order to restore our community to God’s design and to impact the lives of children positively for the future. They began mentoring, volunteering, praying, and giving, and saw an immediate impact.
Within a few years Jeff became interested in personal coaching. After learning about Faithwalking’s coaching component he attended his first 101 retreat. Imagine how surprised he was to find out that Faithwalking was not about teaching ways to coach or disciple others. Instead, God surprised Jeff by wanting to do something radical in his journey of personal transformation. God also grabbed Jeff’s attention with the integrity conversation: “Throughout my life in ministry, I had been trained to ‘under-promise and over-perform’ when dealing with the community, like with public schools. God blindsided me with the smallness of my vision, my unwillingness to dream big. Also, I was amazed at what it meant to re-promise as a part of cleaning up our mess.”
Jeff came to realize that the Hairgrove partnership team with Copperfield Church was serving as a typical “committee.” After attending Faithwalking 201, he asked for permission to transition the committee into a missional community, and the group dynamics were transformed. “We have an incredible team of seven people who made a commitment to be a missional community, not just a committee doing tasks. It is amazing to see the depth of sharing and connection as we practice authenticity and the principles of Faithwalking in our system. As we engage in shared learning, we are transformed. We then carry that transformation into our spheres of influence, both at Hairgrove and outside the school.”
When the Hairgrove partnership began, the school had 30% involvement in their Title I camps (Title I is a federally-funded program). Not all the kids who were eligible would attend. Knowing that many weren’t getting enough food on the weekends, the teachers themselves were getting up early on Saturdays to cook breakfast for the children. The churches asked to take over the cooking and to provide snacks and prizes for the Title I camps. Gradually, kids responded. Attendance jumped to 80% the first year, then increased to 90%, then 95% … In the first three years of the Hairgrove partnership, the school’s TAKS scores improved from 71% to 91% and the school’s rating improved from Academically Acceptable to Exemplary. Hairgrove is now a Title I High Achieving Campus!
The churches received two awards in 2014 for the impact they are having at Hairgrove. First they received a CFISD award for Community Partnership—Academic Impact Award. Second they received the Crystal Award from the Texas Association of Partners in Education. Together Calvary Community Church and Copperfield Church won the highest award in the state in the Community Partnership Academic Impact category.
For Jeff, the most fulfilling aspect of the Hairgrove partnership is the missional community. “Our missional community members have been impacted more than anyone as we learn to be agents of transformation dealing with three different cultures (Calvary, Copperfield, and Hairgrove). I love doing life with these people, I love the depth of sharing, and I love watching them flourish and express who they are,” Jeff shares. The second most fulfilling aspect is changing the trajectory of a school that has 85% at-risk children. The school principal attests, “Hairgrove students, staff, and families are having [their basic, safety, social, and self-esteem needs] met by Calvary Community Church and Copperfield Church… and [they] uplift the staff’s spirits. It is clear that our partners… make a world of difference in the lives of our students, staff, families, and our community at Hairgrove. We are so blessed to have their support!”
Faithwalking took Calvary’s vision to a level of intentionality that Jeff did not think was possible. And God has also used Faithwalking to transform Jeff in radical ways. “I am not the same person I used to be in my relationship with the Lord. God is taking me to new levels of experiencing his love and grace, and I am better able to be an agent of love and grace to others. The Lord so impacted my life through Faithwalking that my wife and my two sons and their wives have all gone through 201. We are all on the journey of transformation together with the same language, mental model, and context. What a joy!”
Faithwalking teaches that in order to transform a city, we have to start with transforming ourselves. God has used Faithwalking to change Jeff, to bless Hairgrove, and to impact the hundreds who are touched by the missional community. Who can underestimate the reverberations transformation can have upon our city, starting with the least of these?
