The call from God to do something about affordable housing was bigger than the building itself, so the building had to go.
-Jon Etherton, member, Arlington Presbyterian Church, Arlington, Virginia
A money story is a narrative about money. We all have them, and the organizations we are part of have them, too. Money stories make up our beliefs, thoughts, and feelings about money—and affect our financial behaviors.
In 2016, Arlington Presbyterian Church (APC) of Arlington, VA, sold its building and the land it was on to Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing. After a lengthy discernment process, the traditional, steeple shaped church building was demolished and from the wreckage, Gilliam Place emerged. Gilliam Place is an affordable housing apartment building with 173 units. Once the apartment building construction was complete, Arlington Presbyterian Church started renting 3,000 square feet of space on the entry level of Gilliam Place, and continues to worship there.
I was called to APC in 2018, and I tell people when a church blows down its building it demolishes more than just brick and mortar. Death and resurrection danced with each other in APC’s discernment process about what to do with the 6-million-dollars in proceeds from the sale of the building. Death came to nostalgia, organizational systems, and a theology that centered the survival of the congregation itself rather than loving our neighbor.
In the first summer of the pandemic, it became clear that our money story needed to join this cycle of death and resurrection. APC had died to what we thought it meant to be church in the sale of their property and the creation of Gilliam Place. Now we needed die to our old money story and let God resurrect something new.
From our Biblical stories, we know that resurrection does not bring about sameness and the status quo. We know this from the empty tomb, the gardener, the stranger on the Emmaus Road, and the locked room.
To die to the old and rise to the new, we needed some help, some angels, to guide us through our stress and fear.
- We hired the Vandersall Collective to get at the roots of our money stories, both individually and as a congregation.
- We explored what our Biblical stories have to say about God’s call to create alternative economies.
- We took a hard look at ourselves—both now and where our imaginations wanted to go with God.
- We created a beautiful set of core values from our lived experiences at Gilliam Place.
What we’ve realized in our new money story is this: the more we share and give away, the more we become the people God is calling us to be.
Our money story now is rooted in relationships, in the lives of us and the neighbors we share life with. Daily, we see our neighbors get absolutely leveled by systems of control, and now, we understand how our money can disrupt systems of harm. We can help repair and enliven our neighborhood rather than mimic systems of supremacy. This hasn’t been easy. We are living in the tension between our previous stories and the ones God is creating with us. For the sake of God, APC will continue to risk it all to live in a relational, transformational, justice-focused way with our neighbors.
This is what APC’s money story and life at Gilliam Place is all about.
Thanks be to God.
About the Author
Rev. Ashley Goff is pastor at Arlington Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) in Arlington, VA. For more about Arlington Presbyterian, visit www.arlingtonpresbyterian.org and www.incairnation.org
