Shining Stars - Therapeutic Riding Ministry.

Honestly, I was really scared, frustrated, and disappointed when I realized who are guest was in class on Tuesday, February 23. I hate horses. Okay, I understand that hate is a strong word, but I really don't like them. However, as Brandy Grago began talking about her Therapeutic Riding Ministry, I became captivated and amazed by all the amazing ways God is using her and the ministry. It was actually very comical and comforting for me when she mentioned a man from her church who won't go anywhere near the horses, but helps with the ministry, also the fact that she was accepting of him, even though he dislikes horses was comforting. God gave brandy a gift, riding and taking care of horses, then He came into her life and gave her a vision. Though the vision was vague, and seemed like a huge feat for her, she accepted the call and was obedient to God! Brandy has been blessed with so many gifts, along with being a woman of God, she is an entrepreneur. The ministry is called Shining Stars - therapeutic Riding Ministry, they meet at Freedom Valley Worship Center in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The Ministry is non-profit and they do what they can to help out as many people as possible, all staff are volunteers! They raise funds by networking in the community and in the horse community. Funds are always tight especially with their planning to build an indoor facility to be able to serve in all seasons. Therapeutic riding is for disabled people of all ages. Research shows that the stimulation of the movement of the horse is healthy for them and helps that grow in advance in many areas! Shining Stars now serves 95 students! It is important to reach the disabled people. 95% of disabled people are unchurched, this is a way to reach them!

Pittsburgh City Outreach: Pastors Brian Bolt and Jonathan Schafer

On Tuesday, February 13, I was also able to catch up with some friends of mine, Pastor Brian and Pastor John. They are pastoring Church plants, planted by my home church, Allison Park Church. The Church Plants of Allison Park are near and dear to my heart because When I was 12 years old, My family transitioned out of APC to start Ridgewood Assembly of God, in my Neighborhood, West View. Over a year ago, Ridgewood was in need of a new Pastor and Chris Hezlep from another Church plant, Evangel AG came to join us along with most of his congregation, and left his church building and the rest of his congregation to Pittsburgh City Outreach, who were in need of a place to meet. This building on the North Side of Pittsburgh was in a great location for Brian's Ministry. This is where my connection with PCO started. I quickly found myself in love with both churches and actually attending both churches services sunday morning. I love helping out every summer with the kids camp at Pittsburgh City outreach. The ministry of PCO is to reach the lost hurting, poor, broken, and addicted people of Pittsburgh. Pastor John is now planting their second church in a part of Pittsburgh called Braddock, where he grew up. These churches don't jsut have a building where they have sunday morning services, they have a women's and Men's recovery homes, where drug and alcohol addicted people, or people who have had trouble with the law and typical family system can go and find refuge and restoration in Christ. It is so cool to have been able to witness first hand people set free from addictions and have restored relationship with family members including regaining custody of children! Brian and John both came from messed up situations, both former drug addicts, they are faithfully following God's call to reach out and help people who are in the same situations they used to be bound in.

New Jersey's Chaplain Daniel Schafer

On Tuesday, February 16, 2010 we had the honor of spending time with Chaplain Daniel Schafer from Jackson, New Jersey in class. Chaplain Schafer is the pastor at Calvary Assembly of God in Highstown, NJ in Jackson, New Jersey, but that is not all he does. He is a Chaplain for the Police and Fire department and he the President of Pres of Crisis intervention Intl. LLC. Chaplain Schafer received training for terrorist activity in New Mexico and is active in the National center for crisis management. If anyone knows how to minister through high stress situations and disaster, it is Pastor Daniel. He learned a lot of how to have an effective ministry to those in distress through reading the Bible. Pastor Daniel says that there is a lot of distress in the Bible and many examples of how God takes terrible situations and uses them for His glory. His church reaches people not only through crisis. They reach out to unique groups of people who typical churches wouldn't think to reach out to, such as bikers, nascar racers and fans, Police officers, and fireman as well as their families. He is asked to do many police and fireman funerals and always presents the Gospel. Chaplain Schaer served at Ground Zero in New York City for a year! There he had to minister to families and friends of fallen police officers, fire fighters, EMTS, and others who died in the 9/11 attack. He would perform on the spot funerals when bodies were found. Pastor Daniels ministry is so effective, and we have so much to learn from him because their is crisis everywhere, and as the Word tells us, this world will only get worse from here. I really learned a lot from pastor daniel. I think it would be great for the Pastoral Counseling majors to get to hear from him.

Phoenixville Area Community Services

Phoenixville Area Community Service or PACS was founded 35 years ago by a group of Clergy was Phoenixville. Although PACS is Federal and State funded, it was these clergymen who came together because of a need. The need was the people in their community who were hungry, sick, and poor. The People that PACS serves are the "working poor." All of these people have jobs, but they still do not always make enough money to fulfill basic human needs such as food and housing. The Mission of PACS is to “Connect People in the Phoenixville area with community resources and emergency assistance.” PACS has many programs including Community Information, Referral, Advocacy for clients, Food, Rental Assistance, Fuel Assistance, and Utility Assistance. They "Offer support, aid, and hope for residents in our community” through connecting people to the appropriate resources to meet their needs, providing emergency food, housing, utilities, and medical services, assisting people to achieve economic self-sufficiency, and linking community assets with community needs. Their 2 main function are emergency care (housing, utilities) and ongoing food. The food is provided by the state and provided once a month to each client. Although Federally and State funded, a lot of the money PACS relies on comes from donations. "Without PACS, local governments would need to provide services at taxpayer expense. Organizations like PACS are more efficient and economical.” Here are Some interesting statistics to help you understand the productiveness of this organization.
- An average of 150 households receive food assistance each month.
- Most people don’t receive food regularly, only occasionally, when in extreme need.
- In the last year, PACS provided $90,747 in food, 84% was donated by the community and $35,472 for emergency housing, heat, electricity, and medicine.
- PACS connected more than 5,000 people with other aid organizations last year.

PACS relies heavily on volunteers and has only 6 paid staff members, 4 with bachelors degrees and 2 with Masters degrees. When hiring PACS would be looking for a degree or experience in social work. When hiring volunteers they look for resourcefulness. Volunteers are needed to do secretarial work, publicity, and work in the food pantry.

This information is from pacsphx.org and from my interview with Sonja Patno. Sonja is a Junior at Valley Forge Christian College studying Social Work. She got involved volunteering with PACS her freshman year and is now fulfilling her internship there.

Otto Wegner and The City of Philadelphia

On Tuesday February 2, we had Pastor Otto Wegner come and share with us. Otto has pastored a number of different churches, his main passion is urban ministries. Otto has a philosophy that poor people are easier to reach than rich people. "Money buys isolation and Privacy. You can't tell a rich man what he needs, but a poor man will tell you what he needs," says Pastor Otto. He talked about planting churches and ministries where they are needed. He talked about the changes he has seen in rough neighborhoods where he has developed ministries and seen great improvements. He says, "Why go to a neighborhood where everything is already nice? Go where change is needed." If you Cater a ministry to the needs of the people and go where the people are, the ministry will be sustained. Otto says he uses the same philosophy as McDonald's, they go where the people are who will continue to buy their products. Otto has a umber of ideas that he believes which he calls shibboleth's, according to Judges chapter 12. Pastor Otto was talking about raising support for churches and it's difficulties. Otto and his wife PAt became Assemblies of God U.S. Missionaries and had to fund-raie all of their support. They also had to fix up both churches which otto is now pastoring, Highway Tabernacle Assembly of God Church and Resurrection Life Church in Philadelphia. Otto says, "Dogs bark, lions roar, fish swim, and Christians give." Another great idea from Pastor Otto about raising support is, "if you need something, you ask until you find the person who says yes and you don't worry about the 75 who say no." This was really encouraging for me because I know a a World Missionary at least 1 year out of every 5 years of my life will be spent asking people for money in order to live and fund my ministry. Asking people for money is not easy, but it is very humbling. The advice otto gives to young minsters is, "We teach what we believe we reproduce who we are. If you do not learn to control yourself, someone else will control you."

Pastor John Brown and the G-Team

On Tuesday 1/26/10 we had pastor John Bowman in our class. Pastor John is the children’s pastor at Calvary Assembly of God in Dover Delaware. Besides serving hundreds of “churched kids” on Sunday mornings in their church services. Pastor John has a ministry called the G-team (The God Team). This ministry reaches out during the week to 400-500 “unchurched kids” of the 10,00 plus children in the neighborhoods of Kent County(mostly low income and government housing neighborhoods). The G-team travels to parks or wherever they can park their Truck. They have special trucks that convert into a stage and they do programs for the children. A gospel message is always presented, since the attendance is very irregular, kids come and go. However, there is always games and music, something engaging. Even if the kids aren’t coming to hear about Jesus, they are coming because the G-team is there. These kids know that the G-team cares and will be there. This is a place where they can go and be safe and loved; hence, the kids will keep coming. There were two things that Pastor John said which I was not expecting, yet pleased to hear. The first is that the G-team does not go out under the churches name, they do not promote their church, they promote God. Another was that They gave one of their trucks to another church in the area, not affiliated with Pastor John’s church, in order for them to use it to minister to Children. The Vision of God Team is to reach children and bring them God’s love, they will do this in anyway they can and will encourage others to as well. For more information about This ministry or to support this ministry visit giveakidachance.com