Madison’s Nehemiah Community Development Corporation started out 15 years ago as a ministry outreach of Fountain of Life Family Worship Center with the mission Rebuilding Faith in our Communities. It went from a half dozen employees to two dozen about ten years ago after securing a Dane County contract to assist families struggling with the impacts of welfare reform.
"It was a mixed blessing," says Nehemiah president Alex Gee. "We had been supported by small county contracts for in-home family therapy services. The big contract helped us grow from a community-based organization that served African Americans in south Madison to a multiethnic organization that served broader Dane County."
But the growth came at a cost that included a need to focus on evaluation and reporting as much as delivery of services. The organization was losing its ability to use all of its resources to address community problems.
Alex Gee is the Guest Speaker at Madison’s annual Wisconsin Prayer Breakfast, which will be held Wednesday, May 23, 2007, at Madison Marriott West, beginning at 7am. The Prayer Breakfast is sponsored by The Jericho Project, Nehemiah Ministries, and www.madisonchristians.com. For tickets and further information go to http://www.thejerichoproject.net/wpb2.html
The large county contract expired recently, and went to another agency. Nehemiah had to release most of its best employees. But Gee says the organization is returning to more of a ministry mode of operation and the lessons learned in the last few year s will be of great benefit to the community. He calls it a pruning process, to prepare to bloom again.
"We were doing great work," he says. "But at the end of the day I don’t want to be known for handing out bus tickets. Christian community development is not just about economics or academics. It’s about spiritual development as well. And we didn’t have room to do that inside that particular contract."
Even so, Gee says Nehemiah did its best to serve its clients like a ministry would, treating them like persons instead of targets. "We want to let the broader community know that we are a reputable social service agency," he says. "And we are committed Christians, men and women of the Lord. We want to provide jobs and training and support. And we want to do it now from a very strong faith-based perspective. We want to see people’s lives transformed and families come back together."
So Nehemiah is continuing on with its core activities: after school learning programs, youth employment services, and family empowerment. But it’s also looking for new roles to help it rebuild faith in the community.
The disproportionately large number of African Americans in Wisconsin’s prison population weighs heavily on Gee. He knows that the spiritual issues responsible for sending many of them to prison aren’t being dealt in prison or in many re-entry programs.
"Bus tickets and jobs are not going to change our community," he says. "The men and women who are now part of our church, who came here straight from prison or with ankle bracelets on, were men and women who got into small groups. They had accountability. They had men and women who took them under their wing. They had an experience with the Lord and not just social services provided to them."
Lilada Gee, Alex’s sister, is also launching a Women of Worth program for survivors of sexual abuse. "Over 70 percent of women in drug and alcohol treatment have sexual abuse issues," he says. "You can put bandages on it, you have to deal with it straight on."
Nehemiah began as part of a coalition of seven sponsoring churches, it was more than just Fountain of Life. Because of the changes over the last decade and a half those relationships have languished. Gee believes it’s critical for Nehemiah to connect with the churches of Madison.
"Prayer support, financial support, volunteer support, they’re all needed," he said. "We need clothing donations. We need help from the Christian community to secure jobs. We need help for single mothers, to get them back on their feet. We need men an d women as mentors, job coaches and role models for men and women who are entering the job market for the first time, or the first time in a long time."
But Alex Gee has a much broader vision for how churches can meet the most critical needs of the community, that comes from two decades of experience in wholistic urban ministry. Even now, as he’s working on a doctorate at Bakke Graduate University in Seattle, he’s also a lecturer at BGU because of his depth of experience.
He believes strongly in the theme of Jeremiah 29, where God instructs the prophet to seek the welfare of the city in which he lives. Gee loves Madison, the city he grew up in. He also loves urban ministry. "There’s something almost sacred about a city because of the people and the systems that are there," he says.